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Finley Was Down Beside Her With His Arm 

Around Her 







THE SABLE CLOUD 

By 

Harriet V. C. Ogden / 

Author of 

“Then Came Molly” 


Illustrated by 
Ralph D. Dunkelberger 


o > 
* 4 > 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1923 


TZ* 

03 ^ 



COPYRIGHT 
1923 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
C O M P A N Y v 



The Sable Cloud 


Manufacturing 

Plant 

Camden, N. J. 


* ■» 

ft # + 


Made in the U. S. A. 

/ 


OCT 12 1923 


©C1A700304 

" Vi, a 








The Sable Cloud 


CHAPTER I 

Grandma Liveright died the year Louisa Live- 
right Lea was born. But before she died, standing 
like a seeress by the side of the cradle, she uttered 
a sort of incantation over the deaf, dumb, blind, 
little sleeping red imp. 

She said: “ You have a grave responsibility in 
her upbringing. Civilization is the care of women. 
The change I have seen come to birth you will see 
the growth of, but she will see fulfilled. She comes 
of those whose destiny is high. Much of the future 
lies hidden like a plaything in her tiny clenched 
hand. See you teach her it is not a plaything. 

“ For all this talk of democracy, the world is a 
snob. It has always looked up and it always will. 
Men are what their heroes make them. They will 
worship the golden calf for a while, but they soon 
grow drunk on its futile sacrifices. Then they lay 
hands on it, and its clay feet crumble and they 
know there is nothing to worship. They break it 
up then and fight for the gold. They call it radical¬ 
ism, or socialism, or—they will have some other 

5 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


name for it by the time the child grows up. Any¬ 
way, teach her the light comes from above and she 
has responsibilities. 

“ Don’t make the mistake of educating her. 
Cultivation is what the world needs. It will be a 
bad time when ladies are turned out wholesale, 
machine-made bluestockings. A gentlewoman is 
made by hand.” 

Aunt Anna Carroll did not agree with Grandma 
Liveright. She said her Frederica should go to 
college. It was all very fine, she said, to talk of 
light from above, but if Society wished to retain its 
leadership, obviously it must lead. Louisa’s father 
begged his sister to remember that there is a dif¬ 
ference between leading and allowing yourself to be 
pushed. Sometimes leading consists of planting 
your feet and standing firm by your convictions. 
Aunt Carroll answered that planting your feet and 
standing firm was generally called balking. Aoiy- 
way, Frederica had to live in her generation and she 
was going to make it as easy for her as she knew 
how. She was to have the higher education. He 
could do as he liked about Louisa. 

He liked to follow Grandma Liveright’s system, 
perhaps because it was hers, more likely because it 
was the reverse of Aunt Carroll’s. He always liked 
the reverse of things his sister liked—especially 
since she married Caleb Carroll, of Saco, Ill., and 
disgraced the family. Anyhow, whatever the 
reason was that decided him, he sent Louisa as the 

6 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


first step in her cultivation to one of Mr. Violette’s 
“ Select Classes for the Cultivation of Gentle¬ 
women.” It was he who sent her. Her mother 
was not consulted. She did not have to be. She 
was the finished product of Grandma Liveright’s 
system, a shadow woman who slipped will-less and 
wordless in the wake of her husband. The only 
person she spoke to on the subject was Aunt Car- 
roll. When she heard Frederica was to go to 
college, she said: “ The idea, Anna! The very 
idea! ” 

Mr. Violette’s theory for the cultivation of gen¬ 
tlewomen was that, their brains being delicate 
mechanisms, easily overstrained, mental effort in 
them must be conserved; what his pupils learned, 
they must learn by absorption, not by study; that 
a lady’s schoolroom should as far as practical re¬ 
produce the conditions of the drawing-room and, 
as a corollary to this, that any Social Function was 
sufficient excuse for her absence; if, on a certain 
day, she went to a lunch party, she need not come 
to school. 

Louisa’s class met at Mrs. de la Pin’s house in 
Twelfth Street, only a couple of blocks from the 
Leas’ house on University Place, and so it happened 
that the beginnings of her friendship with Noel de 
la Pin went back to the dim season of half-remem¬ 
bered babyhood. 

The two children used to play in the afternoons 
in the eastern, aristocratic half of Washington 

7 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Square. The elders loved to watch them roll their 
hoops up and down the paths there. The sight of 
them stirred old memories of beautiful Leas and 
de la Pins of the past. They liked to speculate on 
the result of grafting the fairness and soft gentle 
minds of the Liverights (Grandma Liveright was a 
Dortic, but her daughter was pure Liveright) on 
the darkness and slow, sure wills of the Leas 
(stubbornness is an ugly word). They tilted 
Louisa’s chin and asked her who she looked like, 
and she answered without hesitation: “ Great- 
Grandpa Dortic, the general, except Grandma Lea’s 
eyes. They were gray and so are mine.” This was 
before she could pronounce the words properly. 
She left out all the R’s and lisped the S’s. She 
was, they said, a very promising child. 

She had the opportunity to be promising in many 
directions. Her small feet were carefully placed 
on a whole row of ladders, although she was not 
expected to climb very high on any one of them— 
just high enough to talk intelligently. She was 
taught, in German, to play chess, she was taught to 
draw hands and feet from angular casts, to dance 
to castanets and to sing little songs to her own ac¬ 
companiment,—“Katy did! Khty did! Tell me, 
tell me is it true-ue? ” 

Mr. Yiolette died after Louisa and Noel de la 
Pin had been with him a year or two and they 
were transferred to Miss Letitia Cotenet’s u School 
for the Education of Young Ladies.” It was sup- 

8 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


posed to be just as select as Mr. Violette’s classes 
bad been and it showed how able a prophet 
Grandma Liveright was that Louisa found herself 
mates there with Leida Louise Sullivan, whose fa¬ 
ther was a retail grocer on a huge scale, and with 
Lois Livingstone Morres, who spelt Livingstone 
with an extra letter and Morres with an “E.” 
Louisa was perfectly aware of their plebeian de¬ 
scent. Genealogy was one of the most important 
of her studies. She knew the family history of all 
her school-fellows, the major sins of their grand¬ 
fathers and the peccadilloes of their grandmothers. 
She rather despised the lot of them, and the two 
climbers she resented. 

Outside school she had by now graduated from 
castanets and plaster casts. She was studying 
French literature, expurgated, with a French 
marquis of illustrious name, who was chosen be¬ 
cause of his perfect manners and unattractive 
physiognomy, German literature with a Junker 
who, as a result of dueling, had a cheek with a hole 
in it and a hand with a finger and a half missing. 
An end of bone stuck out of the half finger, and, 
not having the manners of the marquis, he was con¬ 
tinually picking at it, which gave Louisa the night¬ 
mare and rendered her mind utterly impervious to 
“ Der Jungfrau von Orleans/’ 

Twice a week the famous dramatic coach, Miss 
Florette, came and taught her how to walk and 
stand and sit and speak and laugh, and tTvo other 

9 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


days Mr. Broun, whom she could hear put his 
method in practice on the stage of the Metropoli¬ 
tan, came and taught her to sing arias in a voice 
like a reed-bird. She rode horseback every day in 
the park when it didn’t rain, and when it did, she 
rode in the musical drill in the rink. 

Her hours of idleness she spent browsing in her 
father’s library. But the pursuit of cultivation left 
her few idle hours in winter. 

Summer was the idle time. Summer was the 
time for friends. In winter there were only ac¬ 
quaintances,—except Noel,—and she came in sum¬ 
mer as well as winter. Summer was the free time, 
the time when you lived, and all the teachers 
stopped molding and pressing and pulling you into 
an ideal, and you were the person nature meant 
you to be. Summer was the time when you rode 
your pony across the fields and over the fences and 
ditches, when you scrambled him up steep moun¬ 
tain paths and splashed him down the beds of 
rocky brooks. Summer was the time when you 
laughed because the sun shone and danced to the 
sound of the rain; when you played hide and seek 
in the fog and shivered at the shadows of the moon. 
Sun and moon and fog and rain didn’t exist in 
winter, at least not for you. You were shut away 
from them behind walls. Summer was the time 
when there were no walls. 

Summer was the time when you drove fast horses 
and felt like Ben Hur, when you explored the 

10 


i 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

woods and sailed the sea and dreamed long dreams, 
when you leapt into the water and saw the rain¬ 
bow as you shook the drops from your eyes, when 
you ran and jumped and shouted without stopping 
to think what muscles you used and whether you 
were pitching your voice high or low. In summer 
when you got tired you curled up in a hammock 
and read and read and read. And your thoughts 
grew strong and active and insistent so you 
couldn’t keep them cooped up in your head. You 
had to pour them out to somebody and that was the 
reason that summer was the time for friends. 

First, of course, there was Noel de la Pin, calm, 
unemotional, satisfied to take things as they came, 
who never felt a sickening sensation of falling in 
the middle when things went wrong, nor a burning 
light behind her eyes when things were splendid, 
whose knees never trembled with excitement, who 
lived on an even plane and never touched the 
heights nor the depths, nor even envied you your 
mountain tops and valleys, rather pitied you for 
them, though you knew, with all their discomforts, 
they were the best things in life; who had bound¬ 
less patience and understanding when your soul 
broke loose in a fit of talking, who never laughed 
when she shouldn’t, and never repeated what she 
should keep secret. It was a friend like her whom 
Polonius had in mind when he told Laertes to 
“ Grapple him to thy soul with hoops of steel.” 
Noel’s nose tilted at the tip, and her red brown 

11 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


eyes turned slowly when you spoke to her, and 
rested on you solemnly and contemplatively. It 
was a blessing she came in summer. 

There was Zaidee Brown, with bright eyes like a 
little wild creature. She had no mind at all, but 
an imagination worth a dozen minds. The elders 
said her talk was lies, but the elders were stupid. 
Her talk was fiction and as much fun as Schehera¬ 
zade. She was utterly fearless, wouldn’t be dared 
and couldn’t be stumped. Her will was like a piece 
of India rubber. The elders could bend, bend, 
bend it, but they couldn’t break it, and the minute 
they took the pressure off it snapped back where it 
came from. How her little eyes, rather like an 
elephant’s in her fat face, sparkled and snapped as 
she ate forbidden fruit in the greenhouse! It was 
lucky Zaidee came in summer. 

There was Bobby White, who, the elders said, was 
handsome, w t 1io tagged after Noel and was linked 
with her in your mind so you couldn’t think of him 
without thinking of her. 

There was Tim Tuttle w T ho had freckles and no 
sense of humor, who was stupid and rather to be 
despised because he liked to play with girls,—just 
girls,—any girls. 

There was Johnny Rocoft who had freckles and a 
sense of humor, whose laughter was contagious, 
who didn’t like to play with girls except a chosen 
few, who lived next door—you climbed the stile by 

the beach to get there, who- His father and 

12 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


mother were “ Aunt ” and a Uncle ” by affection, 
not relationship. 

Later there was Winton Finley. But he was 
older and only pretended to be as young as you, 
and he liked better to have you pretend you were 
as old as he. He was an important person with 
the elders. He was in politics and you heard them 
say he “ was going a long way.” But they never 
explained where to. Mamma and Papa said it 
showed you were clever that he liked to ride and 
walk with you. But you would rather have had 
someone who did not have to pretend to you. 

Freddie Carroll, Aunt Anna’s daughter, did not 
come till much later, when she came East to col¬ 
lege and made her holiday headquarters at the 
Leas’. That was the year Louisa “ came out.” 


13 


CHAPTER n 


They all “ came out ” the same year, Louisa and 
Noel and Zaidee and Leida Louise Sullivan and 
Lois Morres. They were addle-pated about it for 
months beforehand. They talked, breathed, 
dreamed nothing but balls, parties, clothes and 
partners. They went around with eyes that shone 
and lips that never uncurled, gladness personified, 
denizens of the golden age astray in a world of 
gilt. The sight of them lightened elders’ burdens 
and made stiff lips smile. They danced in the sun 
with the inconsequence of butterflies, and like but¬ 
terflies made the sunlight more joyous. They had 
their usefulness. 

The first dance of the season, the first real “ out ” 
dance, was Noel de la Pin’s on the twenty-third 
of November. The date is not without significance. 
It was at the house in Twelfth Street, in the ball¬ 
room where Mr. Violette’s class used to meet, with 
the conservatory opening off it where his pupils 
used to play during recess. 

Frederica Carroll came down from college for 
the occasion, and she was amazing. Usually she 
looked like—well, she looked like Saco, Ill. But 
when she appeared in the ball dress which Mrs. 

14 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Lea had chosen for her, she looked like Paris. She 
was nothing short of amazing. She was enchant¬ 
ing. She was a dream. Her short little golden 
curls were so tight and glossy and metallic you al¬ 
most expected to hear them tinkle when she walked. 
Her cheeks were pink with excitement and her neck 
as white as the gardenia that nestled in the tulle 
beside it. Her lips were red and parted. Her little 
teeth were pearls. Her blue eyes shone. She could 
not keep still. She was excited. She was a little 
overexcited. She made Louisa feel sedate and 
stately. 

Stateliness was Louisa’s role. Not that she was 
tall, but she moved very calmly and quietly, and 
her gray eyes were steady. Her skirts were longer 
than the other girls’ and her long brown hair had 
only a natural wave. 

The girls appraised each other mercilessly. 

Leida Louise’s hair was so tightly curled it 
looked for all the world like the frowzy shock of a 
Bedouin Arab. 

It was wonderful what art had accomplished 
with funny fat Zaidee. 

Lois looked as though she had just stepped out 
of the fashion plate of a rather advanced shop. 

But it was Noel herself, as she stood before a 
bank of flowers, receiving her guests, who made a 
picture that was never to fade out of Louisa’s mem¬ 
ory. She was like Tennyson’s Lynette with her 
little nose “ tip-tilted like the petal of a flower ” 

15 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


and her sweet smile, trembling and shy, coming and 
going on her lips. Her silver gown was the cloak 
of perpetual youth. The vision of her was to shine, 
unchanged, like a star in Louisa's mind to the end 
of her life, as proof that this unbelievable time 
when joy and life were all one thing was real and 
not a dream; that they had actually stood to¬ 
gether, she and her friends, in a shadowless land, 
and danced in the golden age. 

Bobby White kept hovering around Noel till she 
could leave her guests and dance with him. 

Louisa was dancing with Tim Tuttle when they 
went past her, with a glory on their faces as though 
they were walking into the sunlight. 

u Noel looks like a fairy princess, doesn't she? " 
said Louisa. 

“ She looks very well. But I don't see why fairy 
and I don’t see why princess." Tim was in a per¬ 
petually bad humor lately because it had dawned 
upon him that he was stupid. He couldn’t dance. 
He stepped on his partner's toes and everybody 
else's within reach. 

“ Oh, Tim, you’re so funny! ” exclaimed Louisa. 
And fortunately Winton Finley cut in before she 
had to explain why. 

It was delightful to dance with Mr. Finley after 
dancing with Tim. It was like floating down a 
broad river, a river of music, easy and rhythmic, 
with sudden little whirlpools of swinging motion 
that made you laugh. It was after one of these 

16 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

that he stopped by the door of the conservatory and 
suggested going in. Louisa was breathless. She 
nodded with parted, laughing lips. It was fun to 
be “ out.” 

u Now,” said Finley, putting two chairs opposite 
each other, “ apologize.” 

“What for, in the world?” asked Louisa, still 
laughing as she sat down. 

“ Have you a clear conscience? ” 

“ Absolutely.” 

“ What! A hardened sinner already? ” 

“ What are you talking about? ” 

“ My flowers.” 

“Didn’t I thank you for them? Oh dear! But 
they are lovely.” 

“ Don’t thank me. You did not like them. You 
gave them to Miss Carroll.” 

“ Did Freddie tell you? ” 

“ Do you think I wouldn’t recognize a flower that 
I chose for you, Louisa? ” 

His tone more than his words made the blood 
rise hot behind her eyes. No one had ever spoken 
to her like that before, and she did not know quite 
how to meet it. It made her angry. 

“ I never said you could call me Louisa,” she 
said. “And I never wear gardenias. The smell 
of them makes me sneeze.” 

“ Your apology is accepted.” 

“I didn’t apologize. They were mine to do as 
I liked with. I had more than I could use and 

17 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Freddie had none because she is a stranger. It 
just happened that those went best with her 
dress.” 

She looked up as she spoke, very earnest in her 
explanation, and the smile with which he met her 
eyes changed her anger to embarrassment. She 
felt the red flooding all over her face, and looked 
away. 

He said nothing, but she knew he was still look¬ 
ing at her and smiling, and suddenly she became 
ashamed of her anger. She had been ungracious 
about his flowers, and he had a right to feel hurt. 
Ungraciousness loomed big in Louisa’s scale of 
sins. 

“ I would like gardenias, you know,” she said, 
“ if they didn’t make me sneeze so.” 

He laughed then as though he had been wanting 
to laugh right along. “ Hereafter there shall be 
only orchids and violets,” he said. He leaned for¬ 
ward and laid his hand on her wrist, and she was 
too surprised to move. 

“ I couldn’t tell you before, Louisa. You were 
too young and your father made me promise not 
to. But to-night you are not a child any more, and 
I can tell you. I love you! ” 

“ Good lands! ” 

She had played with the fun of Finley’s atten¬ 
tions (all the girls were green with envy of her 
for having a “ grown-up beau ”), but she had never 
carried them out in her mind to their logical con- 

18 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


elusion, at least not to a real present conclusion— 
there was a misty distance over all her conclusions. 
She had dreamed of life, and dreamed of love, as 
far-off beautiful things, but she had never given 
them actuality by so much as a stolen kiss. Com¬ 
ing upon them suddenly face to face she was be¬ 
wildered and frightened. 

“ Good lands! You! ” she repeated, and her tone 
was not flattering. 

“ I, Louisa? Why not I? ” 

“ You—why—I—I’m too young for you,” she 
ended desperately. 

“ That’s a polite way of telling me I’m too old.” 

She shook her head emphatically. “ No. I don’t 
think you are old.” 

“ I’m thirty-five.” 

“ That’s not much.” She might have cheered a 
nonagenarian in the same tone. 

He laughed at it. “ I’m not senile yet, Louisa. 
And what difference does age make, if you love 
me? ” 

“ If you love me ”! It was like a book to sit 
here and hear him say such things. It made her 
want to laugh, so she sat very still and silent, try¬ 
ing not to. 

He leaned closer. “Louisa, you must answer 
me, you know. What difference does age make if 
you love me? Your father says it doesn’t make 
any.” 

“ Papa? But I don’t think I do love you.” 

19 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


He drew away sharply. Evidently he had not 
expected that answer. 

“ I really don’t think I do,” she repeated. “ I— 
I never thought of it.” 

“You never thought of it, Louisa? Then what 
have you been thinking of all this time? I thought 
of it three years ago when you were only a child, 
with hardly a hint of the woman about you. Like 
young Diana, you seemed to me. I wanted you to 
stay just as you were, and when you went abroad 
last year I was so afraid you would be changed 
that I could hardly bear to come and see you when 
you got back. But you didn’t change. You came 
back the same beautiful, crystalline, other-worldly 
being. And then I knew. And you had not even 
thought of it! ” 

“ No, really, I hadn’t.” 

He looked at her in silence for a long minute, 
and she kept herself from wriggling under his gaze 
only with difficulty. At last he pushed back his 
chair. 

“After all, you wouldn’t be you if you had 
thought of it. Think of it now, Louisa. I will ask 
you again—in a month.” 

She jumped up. “ No, please! ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ No, please! ” 

“ Say ‘ no ’ then, if you want to. Don’t say it 
now.” 

“ I will say ‘ no’!” She knew it suddenly. She 

20 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


knew it beyond doubt, quick with panic. “ Don’t 
ask me again! ” she exclaimed, running out of the 
conservatory. She met Johnny Rocoft at the door, 
and began to dance with him without waiting for 
him to ask her. 

It was a frolic to dance with Johnny, like blow¬ 
ing about helter-skelter in the wind. The hour was 
getting late and the room was emptying. The 
sleepy elders smiled as the couple whirled by them. 
Louisa laughed as the scene in the conservatory 
dropped back into unreality, a play she had seen, 
exciting, perhaps, but one which she had hardly 
even acted in. 

“ Hasn’t it been great, Johnny? ” .she asked. 

“ Fine. But I spent half an hour looking for 
you. What in the world did you and that old fossil 
find to talk about in the conservatory? ” 

She felt a quick temptation to tell him. How he 
would laugh. Winton Finley proposing to her! 
That was a joke to share with Johnny. A joke 
shared with J ohnny was always a better joke. She 
really did wish she could tell him. 

“ He said he wanted to cool off. He said he was 
thirty-five years old.” 

“ Gosh. When a man gets as old as that, you 
can’t tell how old he is, can you? ” Johnny was 
twenty-two. 

“No, you can’t. I suppose-” words died 

away into thoughts—was thirty-five really so very 

old? Was Winton Finley- Was Johnny- 

21 





THE SABLE CLOUD 


Thoughts died away into dreams. One did not have 
to think to dance with Johnny. Just let yourself 
go and sway like a branch in the wind, and dream 
—dream—dream. 

Johnny stopped dancing abruptly and shattered 
her dreams. She woke from them with a start, and 
flushed to realize she had been dreaming it was 
Johnny who had proposed to her in the conserva¬ 
tory. The music had changed. They were playing 
“ Home, Sweet Home ” and they two were the only 
couple left on the floor. 

“ It’s time you went home to bed,” remarked 
Johnny brutally. “ You’ve been dancing in your 
sleep for ten minutes. I’d have stopped, only I 
hated to wake you.” 

“ I wasn’t! ” exclaimed Louisa indignantly. " I 
couldn’t! ” 

“ Yes you were. I don’t know anybody else who 
could. But I swear you were.” 

They had come up to Mrs. de la Pin who was 
standing in the doorway saying good-bye to her 
guests. 

“ I sent Noel up-stairs a little while ago,” she 
said. “ She looked tired—quite tired out.” A 
shade passed across her face, but it was hidden be¬ 
hind her smile so Louisa did not see it. 

Noel had only gone half-way up-stairs. She and 
Bobby White were on the landing leaning over the 
banister watching the crowd below. She threw 
her arm around Louisa’s neck. 

22 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Hasn’t it been great? ” sbe asked. 

“ It’s been splendid. I wonder whether you have 
been able to enjoy it as much as the rest of us? ” 

“ More, I think. I’m so happy, and I’m so tired. 
I’m simply tired out with happiness. Isn’t that a 
nice way to feel? ” She leaned close and whispered 
in Louisa’s ear:“ I’m going to marry Bobby.” 

But she didn’t. In a week Noel was dead. 

Thus did God and man initiate Louisa into life. 


CHAPTER III 


“ Extra ! Extra! All about Gr-ri—All ab- 

Extra! ” 

Louisa raised her eyes from the book she was 
reading aloud and met Mamma’s eyes raised from 
her tapestry. 

“ Is it worth while getting it, dear, do you 
think? ” asked Mamma, in a voice which indicated 
that she didn’t. 

Yet she might have. The cry had a singularly 
live sound ringing up and down the sleepy length 
of University Place, as though there must be some¬ 
thing of real importance to justify it. Newsboys 
seldom came there, except Yids at the noon hour 
when the street was packed with factory hands. 
Even the Yids did not often come down to the lower 
end where the sun slanted through from Washington 
Square along the front of the University, and the 
old houses dozed in a hazy dream of vanished dig¬ 
nity with “ room to let ” signs in their parlor win¬ 
dows. Down there only a blue-blinded, yellow-cur¬ 
tained outpost of Greenwich Village looked recep¬ 
tive of anything so modern as an Extra. The big 
Lea house with its polished door-knob looked quite 
aloof from it; seemed, indeed, with the shades 

24 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


drawn down half-way on the windows, and two lay¬ 
ers of heavy curtains hanging straight below that, 
to have closed its eyes on the twentieth century and 
its doings, to be blind to the manifestations of 
change all around it, to the impertinent little whip¬ 
per-snapper from Greenwich Village opposite, to 
the encroaching slums behind, and the sweatshops 
in the block above. It seemed to recognize only 
Washington Square for a neighbor and to be com¬ 
pletely absorbed in the contemplation of its own 
mid-Victorian dignity. 

It was a gray stone house of a vaguely ecclesias¬ 
tic style, with carved finials over the doors and 
windows. It stood back from the street a little 
way, protected from it by a tall iron fence whose 
points and pinnacles were apt, on windy days, to 
fly speared newspapers like disreputable flags. In¬ 
side the fence there was a narrow grass plot where 
a magnolia tree grew and crocuses “ bloomed in 
the spring—tra-la,” like the Mikado’s flowers. The 
place had an imposing appearance and strangers 
stopped to stare at it. It seemed, standing there 
in the blowing dust and papers, like a silent, sor¬ 
rowful protest against Democracy, a sort of monu¬ 
ment to show how comfortable Aristocracy can be 
—for aristocrats. 

And it was comfortable. The entrance hall, 
paved in diagonals of black and white marble, was 
open all the way to the roof where there was a 
skylight of yellow glass that filled the whole house 

25 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


with, a mellow glow, like sunlight. On the right of 
the hall were two big drawing-rooms and back of 
them the dining-room with a glass morning room 
behind it where in sunnier days palms used to grow 
and begonias, but now nothing flourished but a tin 
ivy. 

On the left of the hall was the library. It was as 
long as the two drawing-rooms and the dining-room 
put together and it was two stories high, with a 
gallery running round it, and a peaked ceiling 
where cross beams went crisscross like big dusty 
cobwebs, almost out of sight in the duskiness. The 
room was lighted by a big window front and back, 
up above the gallery. The front window was of 
stained glass so people in the street couldn’t see in. 
It was almost unbelievably ugly in itself, but it 
woke dim glowing patches of color on the backs 
of the books along the wall and set little fairies of 
variegated light dancing up among the roof beams 
and down on the polished floor boards when the 
sun shone through in the afternoon. 

The library fireplace was the heart of the house. 
Here, over the mantel in the midst of carved curly 
leaves, was a shield with two little red lions on a 
gold ground and two little gold lions on a red 
ground, and under it the motto “ Sto solus ” which, 
being translated, means “ I stand alone ” or “ by 
my owm strength.” Freddie Carroll said it meant 
“ I lean on my own dinner.” But Freddie was an 
iconoclast. 


26 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Above the shield was, a helmet facing sideways 
with the visor open, which as everybody knows 
means “ gentility.” A helmet facing forward with 
the visor closed means royalty, facing sideways 
with the visor closed means nobility, facing for¬ 
ward with the visor open means knighthood, and 
sideways with the visor open, means gentility. And 
royalty, nobility and knighthood being all capable 
of achievement, while gentility is the gift of God, 
the possessors of the latter helmet consider it by 
far the most desirable—though, as Mrs. Lea used 
to say, wishing to be broad-minded, if you happened 
to have one of the others, you could probably find 
a reason for preferring that. All this, of course, 
is English heraldry, which America, having none 
of her own, borrowed along with the language and 
some prejudices and other things, making such ad¬ 
justments in each as suited her need. The Leas, 
however, be it emphatically stated, did not borrow 
their heraldry. They inherited it along with the 
language and made as far as circumstances per¬ 
mitted no change in either. They always pro¬ 
nounced “vase” as though it were spelt with a 
double “A.” Over the helmet was the crest, a 
leopard standing upright between two palm fronds. 
The leopard illustrated the motto. The meaning 
of the palm fronds was a little obscure. 

Everything in the house, with the exception of 
the door-mat, which was wonderfully yellow and 

27 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


prosperous, and a couple of books still in tlieir pa¬ 
per covers, looked a little worn and as though, it 
had grown old in its present surroundings, as 
though if you moved it away it would leave a bright 
spot on the wall paper. This lack of shiny varnish 
added amazingly to the air of comfort—and per¬ 
haps of aristocracy. 

Louisa put down the book she was reading when 
the “ Extra ” call came near, and opened a pane of 
blue glass in the window so she could look out into 
the street. 

“ Don’t go too close, dear, somebody might see 
you,” warned Mamma. “ I really don’t believe it’s 
worth getting. What’s that? ” 

The door down below under the gallery had 
opened and she turned her head with a startled 
look. u See who it is, dear,” she said. 

The lower half of the big room was a well of 
duskiness in the waning afternoon, and Louisa, 
standing by the gallery rail, could see nothing 
among the mote-filled beams of red and gold and 
green that streamed down into it but a dim, in¬ 
distinguishable figure. 

u Wlio is it? ” she asked. 

“ Winton Finley.” 

Mrs. Lea pushed her tapestry frame back and 
rose hastily to her feet. 

Louisa laid her hand on her shoulder. “ Don’t 
go, Mamma, please,” she whispered. But her 
mother shook her head emphatically and tiptoed 

28 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


out through the gallery door so quickly and si¬ 
lently that Finley never knew she had been there 
at all. 

“ May I come up? ” he asked. 

“ No.” 

A single ray of white light striking through the 
pane she had opened shone full upon Louisa, catch¬ 
ing in her hair and making a nimbus of brightness 
about her. 

“You look like an angel up there.” Finley 
crossed the room to stand below her. 

“ A wonderful transformation! ” she mocked. 

“ Say merely illumination,” he corrected. 

She moved aside so the ray fell past her. “I 
didn’t hear the door-bell,” she said, stirring her 
hands uneasily against each other. “ You startled 
me.” 

“ But you expected me. Didn’t you expect me, 
Louisa? I told Lauchlin you did.” 

“No. Why should I expect you? And did I 
ever say you might call me Louisa? ” 

Finley laughed. 

“ There is one answer to both questions,” he said. 
“ It is the twenty-third of the month.” 

“Light the light, won’t you, please?” she said. 
To Louisa his voice came up almost out of dark¬ 
ness. She could not see his expression nor his 
features. “ The switch is to the right of the door 
where you came in.” 

He did not move. “ I think if you had not ex- 

29 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


pected me you would liave been out, Louisa. It’s sc 
glorious afternoon.” 

“ Extra! Extra! ” The call was directly under 
the window now, and Louisa turned to look out 
at the boy. So doing sbe caught the full flood of 
light on her face. 

“ What is it? ” she asked. 

“ 6 It is the East and Juliet is the Sun.’ ” 

Hurriedly she stepped back again. 

“ Please drop it. I mean the extra.” 

“ Something great. Beauty, perhaps.” 

She frowned, drawing back out of sight against 
the wall. The front door banged shut with a loud 
proprietory bang before she had to answer. Finley 
switched on the lights and, blinking in the first 
flare of them, she came down the staircase to the 
main floor. 

“ Good-evening, Papa,” she said, tipping her head 
back dutifully to be kissed as her parent entered 
the room. 

He kissed her carefully, picking the exact spot, 
right under her left eye, where he always kissed 
her. At the same time he held out his hand to the 
guest. 

“ Good-evening, Finley. Glad to see you.” 

Mr. Lea was amazingly like his house. He was 
noticeably important looking, aristocratic and self- 
satisfied—absolutely self-satisfied. He was super¬ 
latively kept, with the art that conceals the art. 
His clothes came from England and looked as 

30 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


though, it was only by a lucky accident that they 
fitted so perfectly. But they always did fit per¬ 
fectly. They were never old, but they never 
seemed new. People were apt to stop and look 
after him, as they stopped to look at his house, and 
to inquire who he was. This he liked. A gentle¬ 
man should, he considered, be easily remarkable 
among the rank and file, gentility entailing an out¬ 
ward and visible sign as well as an inward and 
spiritual grace. His chief complaint against the 
growing city was that people had to inquire who 
he was. Forty years ago walking up Fifth Avenue 
on a fine afternoon was almost like going to a re¬ 
ception. You saw everybody you knew and you 
knew everybody you saw. You wore your hair out 
taking off your hat. But now! You might travel 
from Washington Square—only he still called it 
Washington Parade Ground—to the Park and be¬ 
yond without seeing a familiar face. The streets 
were full of spitting foreigners and jostling Jews. 
There was no place in them for ladies and gentle¬ 
men. He was jealous of the abuse of the terms 
“ lady ” and “ gentleman.” To him they conveyed 
a definite idea. It irritated him immensely to hear 
people speak of a “ sales-lady ” and to be told to 
“ ask the gentleman behind the counter.” Espe¬ 
cially the “ gentleman behind the counter.” If the 
term “ lady ” is desecrated there is still “ gentle¬ 
woman ” to fall back upon, but from “ gentleman ” 
there is no retreat. 


31 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


He carried a cane when he walked, swinging it 
up and down with a quick motion of the wrist 
which had become so habitual that his hand 
sometimes, when he was moved by emotion, kept 
up the rhythm when there was no cane in it. 
When he wanted to be pleasant and when he 
wanted to be disagreeable alike, he opened his 
eyes very wide, showing the white all around 
the iris. These were his tw T o gestures, capable 
of expressing as many emotions as the tail of a 
dog. 

He opened his eyes very wide at Louisa now^, and 
said: “ Ha, ha. Are you going to give me tea, you 
tw T o? Where’s Mamma? ” 

“ Mamma went up to her room, I think.” 

“ I’ll go fetch her. Order tea, daughter. When 
are you going to clear our streets of this midday 
mob, Finley? ” 

“I’m doing the best I can to do it, Mr. Lea. 
Fighting for it every minute. Conditions are better 
on Fifth Avenue, I think.” 

“ I am interested in University Place.” 

“ So am I. They are kept moving, aren’t they? 
Not allowed to lounge against your railing as they 
used to ? ” 

“ Ask Louisa.” 

“ Extra! Extra! ” 

“What is it, Papa? May I send out and buy 
it?” 

“ No! ” 


32 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


The negative was so emphatic and so unexpected 
that silence followed it. 

Mr. Lea opened his eyes wide and glared at 
Louisa. 

“ Utter nonsense. Order tea,” he said, and went 
up the stairs and out of the gallery door, leaving 
Louisa with the wondering hurt feeling of a 
snubbed child, and Finley with the wondering 
wakeful curiosity of the on-the-minute politician. 

Louisa rang the bell for tea and then went and 
sat down by the fire. 

“ You’ll stay to tea, Mr. Finley, won’t you? ” she 
asked, pulling the table close in front of her as a 
barricade. 

“ That’s for you to decide,” he answered, sitting 
opposite to her and leaning forward with his el¬ 
bows on his knees and his hands clasped, looking 
at her. 

“ For me? ” she inquired. “ I supposed a hostess 
made her decision before she invited her guest” 

“ I wish you meant that—the way I would like 
you to, Louisa.” 

She frowned. u And I wish you would—drop it. 
We used to have good fun together.” 

“ I can’t drop it,” he leaned closer, resting his 
clasped hands on the table. “ It’s the twenty-third 
of the month.” 

She pushed her chair back impatiently. 

“ The twenty-third is no different from any other 

day in the month.—Please! ” 

33 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u Yes it is. Every twenty-third, I must ask my 
question.” 

“ No.” 

“ I must.” 

“ But why, when I have answered it? ” 

“ Some day you will answer differently.” 

“ Never.” 

“ Then I will ask forever. I must, Louisa.” 

u Hurry up, then. Get it done.” 

“ Will you many me? ” 

“ No. I will not. Now are you satisfied? ” 

“ Decidedly not. But I didn't expect you to an¬ 
swer differently to-day. Perhaps next month.” 
He smiled at her with a serenity she found exas¬ 
perating. 

“ I wish you knew what a nuisance you are! ” 
she exclaimed. 

“ I am sorry. I don’t want to be a nuisance.” 

“ Then let this be the last time. Please! I will 
never marry you. Never. And if you go on like 
this, you will make me hate you.” 

“ No woman ever hated a man for loving her, 
Louisa. And I am not so sure that you will never 
marry me. Your father and mother want you 
to.” 

“ No. They don’t want me to marry anyone I 
don’t care for. I don’t see how you can want me to 
marry you when I don’t love you.” 

“ That is because you don’t appreciate yourself, 
darling. You don’t realize how adorable and de- 

34 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


sirable you are. If you cared for me you would be 
perfection, and that is more than mortal man can 
hope for. But love will come. You are still so 
young. Some day you will love someone, and as 
long as there is no one else I can hope. There is 
no one else, Louisa? ” 

He stretched his hands out across the table, 
palms upward, and looked at her with deep eyes 
that had a reputation. 

She gave her chair a further little kick back¬ 
ward, though it was already against the bookcase 
and could go no further. 

“ I don’t think you have any right to ask me such 
a question.” 

“ No? ” He sat staring at her for a long minute 
while it was only by force that she kept her eyes 
steady and prevented them dropping before his. 
When he leaned back and turned away at last, 
she blinked rapidly and gave her head a shake 
as though she felt herself released from some¬ 
thing. 

“ You don’t need to answer in words,” he said. 
“ Your face has told that there is not. You are 
asleep, Louisa.” 

Lauchlin came in with the tea at that moment 
and saved her from needing to answer. 

“ One lump? ” she asked when the tray was in 
place. 

He jumped to his feet quickly. “ I won’t stay,” 
he said. 


35 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u No? ” She too rose. u I am sorry, Mr. Finley. 
Please believe me when I say I am sorry. I really 
am.” 

He lifted her fingers to his lips. 

“ I know you are, Louisa. Good-bye.” He 
turned and went out of the room just as, up-stairs 
in the gallery, Mamma and Papa came in from the 
upper hall. 

“ Extra! Extra! ” 

As Finley stepped out of the front door two boys 
who were floating around the bottom of the steps, 
the way goldfish float where they hope for crumbs, 
darted upon him from either side. 

“ Paper, Mister! Here you are. All about the 
Pan American Rice Company. Awful excitement 
in Wall Street. Here you are, Mister. All-” 

They pushed their wares in his face from right 
and left and mechanically taking a sheet from one 
boy, he gave his penny to the other. The commo¬ 
tion which followed woke the echoes, but Finley 
sank immediately too deep in the news to notice it. 
He stopped under the nearest lamp-post to read, 
while the boys fought it out uninterrupted. 

“ Englewood, N. J., March 23rd.—Announce¬ 
ment was made here to-day by the Pan American 
Rice Co. of New York that it has completed the 
purchase of the Wheeler Rice Refining Process 
Patent, which it will use for its exclusive benefit. 
The negotiations were carried on in this town with 
the greatest secrecy.” 


36 




TEE SABLE CLOUD 


Under this short dispatch was a half column of 
explanatory story. 

“ The announcement made to-day by the Pan 
American Rice Co. that it has purchased for its ex¬ 
clusive benefit the Wheeler Rice Refining Process 
Patent, though it came after the closing of the 
Stock Exchange and therefore too late to affect to¬ 
day’s market, caused an excitement in Wall Street 
hardly equalled since the early days of the war. 
Rice growers and refiners throughout the country 
have been negotiating for the joint purchase of the 
Patent, which it is expected will revolutionize rice 
handling methods and raise that staple to a posi¬ 
tion of equal importance as a foodstuff with wheat. 
The Pan American Co. alone stood to lose by 
such a joint purchase, since it would have cost it 
the superiority over rival concerns which it at pres¬ 
ent enjoys. It has never consented to be affiliated 
in the joint purchase, but no intimation has ever 
been given that it was negotiating on its own ac¬ 
count. The announcement came, therefore, as a 
stunning blow. The full extent of the effect of this 
deal on the Stock Market can only be guessed. 
Without doubt the stock of the Pan American Co., 
which has been declining steadily for six months 
past till it failed to-day to find a purchaser at 
10will make a sx>ectacular rise, while stock in 
the other Rice Companies, and perhaps in the Wheat 
Market, will make a corresponding fall. Many for¬ 
tunes will be made and many lost, and there is 
danger of a panic. Wonder was expressed this 
afternoon that such absolute secrecy could have 
been maintained. All the negotiations have taken 
place in Englewood, N. J., to which, it is said, the 

37 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


officers of tlie Company and their counsel, together 
with the representatives of the Wheeler Patent 
Corporation, have made their way one at a time by 
different routes. No details of the transaction, nor 
the price paid, were obtainable either at the office 
of the Company nor of any of the directors, nor of 
their counsel. At the office of Mr. Frederick de 
Peyster Lea, counsel for the Pan American Co., it 
was said it was unlikely that any of the principals 
would return to the city to-night, and that no state¬ 
ment further than that already made would be 
given out.” 

Winton Finley, folding his paper, looked up at 
the brightly colored window of the house he had 
just left, and said, quite distinctly and aloud, so 
the newsboys, once more at peace, heard and 
nudged each other . . . “ Damn.” 

He turned away after a minute and walked 
thoughtfully up the street, dodging the hurtling 
factory hands who came pouring out of the dull 
gray buildings, and kicking aside the broken sheets 
of newspaper that blew against his shins. He 
turned into the Brevoort House and went to a tele¬ 
phone booth. 

“Daily Postf Give me the night editor. This 
is Winton Finley. Frederick Lea is at his house, 
if you want to get him. No thanks necessary.” 
“Morning Telegram? Night editor—out? All 
right, city editor, then—Mack? This is Finley. 
Don't let 'em bunco you, Mack. Fred Lea's in town 
all right. You’ll find him at his house.—Yes. I've 

38 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


just left there. No need of thanks. Glad to help 
along/ 7 “ Chronicle f Let me speak to Mr. 
Martin- 77 


39 



CHAPTER IV 


Louisa was the child of her parents’ old age. 
She was the contemporary of the children of the 
younger sisters of her mother’s friends. She ar¬ 
rived after all the family ruts had hardened with¬ 
out allowance for her. She was a delight, but she 
was a problem. To her father she was a disap¬ 
pointment, because there were no Lea boys in the 
next generation. But to her mother it was a com¬ 
fort she was a girl. If she had been a boy she 
would have been a greater problem still. Between 
a son and a husband, which to put first? With a 
daughter, fortunately, there was no such question. 
She believed firmly in the Shadowhood of Women. 
A daughter, she felt, was more peculiarly her own 
than a son could ever have been. A boy she would 
have had to group with his father in her mind, 
“they and I.” But a girl she could group with 
herself, “ he and we.” It was more comfortable in 
many ways. It made her feel less lonely. Yet even 
so, the child was a problem. Mrs. Lea was com¬ 
pounded of love and anxiety. The two of them 
folded a frown between her eyes and kept her 
awake at night. It had been easier before the child 
came, when there had been no division of love. 

40 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


There had been less anxiety then. She had come to 
realize this more than ever in the last few months 
since Louisa had put away childish things and had 
begun to have real grown-up sorrows and problems 
and joys of her own. Noel, for instance—Louisa 
had absolutely insisted on cancelling her ball which 
was to have been the very night of Noel’s funeral. 
That had irritated her father. She ought to have 
let his good taste decide, and have put it off a week 
as he wished. It was hardly feminine in her to set 
herself up against his judgment. It would be a 
long time before he forgot it. And then Winton 
Finley- 

The dear lady sighed as, her hand lying lightly 
on her husband’s arm—making a charmingly old- 
fashioned picture in her sweeping velvet dress— 
she stepped down the first step of the gallery stairs, 
coming to entertain their guest. 

But the guest was not there. 

“ Where is he? ” demanded Mr. Lea, seeing 
Louisa sitting alone behind the tea tray. 

“ He’s gone,” she answered, getting up to give her 
mother her place. 

“ Why, the idea! ” sighed Mrs. Lea. “ And there 
was such nice fresh cake, too. I had it made on 
purpose, thinking he might come. Why did you 
let him go, Louisa? ” 

“ How could I stop him? ” 

u Easily enough if you had wished to, Louisa. 
Don’t equivocate.” Her father opened his eyes 

41 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


wide at her. “ You know very well what I think of 
Winton Finley. He is one of the rising men of his 
generation. 7 ’ 

“ I am sorry, Papa, 77 said Louisa, catching her 
lip in her teeth. To the initiated it was evident 
that Papa had had a “trying day 77 and she 
hastened to get his tea to him and supply him with 
sandwiches. 

“ Plain bread and butter, 77 he muttered. “ I am 
hungry. I had only a light lunch. 77 

The love in Mrs. Lea’s eyes became more anxious 
and the frown between them deepened. 

“Would you like something else? It won’t take 
a minute. Louisa will ring. Louisa dear! 77 

“ Let it alone. This will do. 77 

“ I am afraid you’re tired, Fred.” 

“ I am. I have been out of town.” 

“Why, Fred, the idea! And the train always 
gives you a headache. When you have had your 
tea you must lie down and take a nap.” 

“ I shall read a book to take my mind off my busi¬ 
ness. I had hoped to have a talk with Finley.” 

He looked at Louisa as he said it, and she mur¬ 
mured again: “ I am sorry, Papa.” 

“ Don’t pretend, Louisa. You are not sorry, and 
the reason is that you cannot follow an earnest, 
interested conversation. Your idea of talk is chat¬ 
ter. When you get older you will appreciate men 
like Finley—I hope. There is the telephone. Go 
answer it before the servants get there. If it is for 

42 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


me, say I am not at home and not expected to¬ 
night. Don’t answer any questions.” 

“ All right, Papa.” 

In a few minutes she came back. “ It was a re¬ 
porter from the Chronicle . He did not believe me 
wdten I said you were not here. He said he knew 
you were here, but I insisted and rang off.” 

“ Drat it! Who gave me away? I hope you were 
polite, Louisa. What are you doing this evening? ” 

“ I am going to dinner at the Bocofts’.” 

“ Is it a party? ” 

“ I think not. Just myself. We’re going to play 
Auction, Uncle John and Aunt Julie and Johnny 
and I.” 

“ Telephone and say you can’t come.” 

This time it was Louisa’s eyes that opened. 
“ Why? ” she exclaimed. 

“ Because there’ll be a string of telephone calls 
now. And I want you to answer them. I don’t 
want the servants to do it.” 

“ But, Papa-” 

“ Louisa! dear! ” interrupted Mrs. Lea. “ When 
Papa asks you. Come! Papa’s tired. Y ou mustn’t 
bother him. Go and call Aunt Julia. You can take 
them all to the theatre any other night you like. 
Can’t she, Fred? ” 

“ Of course.—There’s the front door-bell. Stop 
Lauchlin before he answers it, Louisa. Tell him 
to say I’m not here. I’m not in town, and not ex¬ 
pected to-night. Hurry! ” 

43 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


Louisa ran. 

Mrs. Lea sighed. “ I am so sorry you had a 
trying day, dear. I do hope nothing went wrong.” 

“ Nothing at all, Lizzie. I am disappointed 
about Louisa. I—eh—it is most unfortunate she 
does not care for Winton Finley. I—eh—if she did 
care for him, I should consider it a very fortunate 
match. I wish you would speak to her.” 

“ Yes, dear.” She did it as soon as Louisa came 
back. 

“ Did you get Aunt Julia? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, Mamma.” 

“ That’s my good little girl. Now tell Mamma. 
Did Mr. Finley propose to you to-day? ” 

“ Yes, Mamma.” 

“ That’s four times, isn’t it, dear? ” 

“ Five.” 

“ Five times! Why, Louisa, the idea! Five 
times! How much he must care for you. My 
little girl is sure she does not care for him? ” 

“ Yes, Mamma, I am sure.” 

“My little girl must think about it, very, very 
seriously. It would make Papa and Mamma so 
happy if she should learn to care for him. Kiss 
me, dear, and run up-stairs so Papa can have his 
sleep.” 


44 


CHAPTER Y 


Winton Finley, when lie left the Brevoort 
House, walked up-town to his rooms in the Forties, 
dressed quickly for the evening and went out again. 
He took a taxi as far up as Sixtieth and then, dis¬ 
covering that he had fifteen minutes to spare before 
dinner and considerable irritation still to get rid 
of, dismissed it and wmlked into the park. Tem¬ 
peramental March had turned clammy. The dis¬ 
tances were murky, the trees dripped and under 
each of them there was a dark puddly spot on the 
sidewalk. It was the sort of night on which irrita¬ 
tion sticks to anybody it has hold of. The more 
Finley thought about Louisa the more exasperated 
he became. Hot that he seriously doubted the 
ultimate successful termination of his suit, but to 
be kept dangling like a love-sick boy was—well, it 
was not what life had taught him to expect. Also 
he was not a love-sick boy. He was one of life's 
spoiled darlings, to whom she tosses the plums 
before he has time to grow hungry for them. 
From the day he was first laid in his satin lined 
bassinet till he carried the last city election in 
triumphant victory, he had never felt a reverse 
severe enough to leave a mark upon him. People 
said he was gifted, and he was. He could sway a 

45 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


crowd with, his tongue. He could twist men’s 
minds into how-knots. He loved the thrill of many 
breaths held for his words, and the heady dizziness 
of cheering hundreds. He was gifted, too, with the 
power to take a single mind and mold and press it 
to his wishes, and the first sips of these warm 
single-handed triumphs, as much headier than 
those in the solution of masses as Chartreuse is than 
Rhine wine, had already intoxicated him a little. 
His ambition was swelling like a pouter pigeon. 
He saw only ends in the world and people as means 
to reach them. Louisa was a means. It was time 
for him to marry and Louisa was the wife prepared 
by fate, the plum ripened for his mouth. She had 
everything he needed in a wife. She had money, 
for instance, not as much as some others but plenty 
to let the difference be outweighed by her other 
gifts. One must have a policy in politics, and 
honesty was his policy. He gambled on the innate 
decency of the masses and judged that Louisa, who 
was of the type the average man and woman loves 
to dream about, would form an extra tie binding 
their affection to him; they would be proud, with 
the vicarious pride people feel in their heroes, of 
the quiet settled dignity of his home life, all the 
beautiful things around him which money cannot 
buy. It was a pretty decent road his ambition 
travelled. But it was the ambition he thought 
about, not the road. It was exasperating to have 
Louisa keep him dangling like this. It filled him 

46 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


with a feeling of impotence, new and uncomfort¬ 
able. He felt like shaking her, and the less he 
could have his way, the more he wanted it—with 
his brain. His heart was not involved. 

At Seventy-second Street he turned out of the 
Park again and by eight o’clock he had reached his 
destination and was pulling viciously at the door¬ 
bell of Mr. Edward Livingstone Morres’s house on 
East Seventy-third Street. 

He was surprised, when he stepped into the hall, 
to find no other hats there before his. 

“ Am I early? ” he asked. 

The young footman in a white wig who was tak¬ 
ing his coat looked scared and cast appealing 
glances towards the butler who, standing a little 
way off, watched the proceedings with magnificent 
detachment. It was the latter who answered. 

“ Exactly on time, I believe, sir.” 

A sort of crystal Grandfather’s clock in the 
corner said the same thing, booming out an aria 
from Faust that seemed to have little relevance. 

The clock went very well with the hall, which 
was floored in rose-antique and columned in caen- 
stone. The walls were lined with pink brocade to 
match the pavement and at the foot of the stairs 
there was a pink silk prayer rug on the floor. If 
the chimes had rung an aria from, say, “ Der Rosen 
Cavalier,” it would have been quite appropriate. 

The outside of the house was of white marble, 
the door was of glass and iron, and from 

47 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


where Winton Finley stood in tlie liall lie could see 
a long vista of pale colored drawing-rooms opening 
out of each, other. It was into none of these, how¬ 
ever, that the butler led him, but up the plush- 
railed stairs into the library. It was a red room. 
The walls were red, the curtains were red, the 
carpet was red, and the upholstery was a very red 
red. Around the walls ran five shelves of red 
books, all alike bound in Morocco, all of a size, the 
line of them quite unbroken, not a tooth missing. 
Over in the corner by the mantel, Bodin’s 
“ Thinker ” invited to meditation. 

The room was only dimly lighted now, quite 
cozy and dim. There was a fire in the grate and in 
front of the fire, beside a lamp that threw deep 
shadows under her eyes and under her chin, lay 
Miss Lois Livingstone Morres deep in a cushioned 
sofa. She rolled over on one elbow to look towards 
the door as she heard Finley’s step on the stairs. 

“ Hello,” she greeted him. “ Come on over.” 

She moved one long pink-stockinged leg to make 
room for him. 

“ I’m afraid I’m early,” he said, though he was 
looking straight at the clock on the mantel and it 
said ten minutes past eight. It was a little ahead 
of the one down-stairs. 

Lois looked at the clock too. “ No, you’re not 
early. Oh, of course, because there is no one else 
here. But there is no one else coming. Did you 
think it was a party? ” She kicked her legs out 

48 


THE 8ABLE CLOUD 


straight again, now he was safely ensconced in the 
opposite corner of the sofa. 

“ It was very stupid of me, I suppose.” His 
voice had not yet quite shaken off the irritation. 

Lois gave a wriggle that brought her close up 
beside him with her legs curled under her and her 
hand resting on his knee. 

“ I’m sorry you’re disappointed. Do you mind 
—very much?” she asked. 

“ Not at all. I like quiet family evenings.” 

“ Are you sure? ” 

“ Sure.” 

She followed his eyes to her hand on his knee, 
laughed and dropped back among the cushions, 
giving a hitch to the chain around her neck which 
was all that kept her flimsy dress in place. 

“ As a matter of fact it w^as Daddy wanted you 
to-night,” she said. “ He wants to talk politics,— 
pavements, I think. He’ll be down in a little 
while. He was detained down-town. Something 
about the Rice Patent. Have you any stock in the 
Pan American? ” 

“ I wish I had.” 

“ You’d probably have sold it, like everybody 
else. Dad’s just like a bear with a sore back about 
it. He held on till last week, just long enough to 
sell at the lowest figure. He says it will be sky 
high to-morrow.” 

“ So I gathered from the papers.” 

“ I suppose they made millions themselves. Mr. 

49 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Lea is counsel for the company, you know. Louisa 
Lea’s father. She’s a darn lucky girl.” 

“ She deserves her luck, don’t you think? ” 

“ Louisa? Perhaps I’m prejudiced. We didn’t 
get on very well at school.” 

“ Fight? ” 

“ Imagine fighting at Miss Cotenet’s! No. We 
were a little extra polite to each other. We are 
still.” 

“ Killing with kisses. They’re women’s dead¬ 
liest weapons, aren’t they?” Finley’s mind had 
not yet joined him in the Morres’s library, and 
platitudes take no thinking. They come as a sort 
of a reflex action when the proper stimulus is given, 
just as “ God bless you ” comes after a sneeze. 

“ Not against women,” said Lois, stretching her 
hands over her head and leaning back on them. 
Seen thus she appeared to have extraordinarily 
little on. “ Not even Louisa’s kisses,” she repeated, 
tipping her head to look at him, and laughing a 
little as she said it. Then she yawned lightly, 
covering it with two fingers. “ Not but what I’d 
like Louisa if she’d let me. Hand me those 
cigarettes, like a good boy. But she resents me, 
you know. She thinks it’s little short of a crime 
to put an extra letter on Livingstone and spell 
Morres with an c E.’ ” 

“ Oh, come. Miss Lea isn’t a snob.” 

She leaned forward to light her cigarette at the 
match he held. 


50 


THE 8ABLE CLOUD 


46 I suppose they don’t recognize each other,” 
she said. 

She was beginning to get his attention now. 
“ Do you mean to suggest that I am a snob? ” he 
asked, pausing in lighting his own cigarette. 

“ Well—would you really love Louisa so very 
much except for snobbery? ” 

“ What makes you think I love Louisa at all?” 
he demanded sharply. 

“ Everybody knows that! ” There was a hint of 
mockery in her laugh. “ So it’s 4 Louisa ’ now, is 
it?” 

“ How do they know? Does she-•” he caught 

himself up quickly, yet not so quickly but that Lois 
could answer exactly as though he had finished his 
sentence. 

46 Shame upon you, Winton Finley! Of course 
she doesn’t. You do it yourself. You wear your 
heart on your sleeve. Louisa wouldn’t. She’s a 
nice girl. I don’t mind saying that. I don’t bear 
any grudge. What would be the sense? You’ve 
got to take things as they are, and after all you 
ought to spell Morres with an 4 1.’ ” 

“ I don’t believe you’re as much of a cynic as you 
pretend, Miss Morres.” 

“ I’m not a cynic at all. I’m only puzzled.” 

u What about?” 

“ You.” 

“I am flattered,” said Finley, taking his cigarette 
from his mouth and bowing towards her. 

51 



THE 8ABLE CLOUD 


She laughed, snuggling deeper into the cushions 
like a comfortable kitten. “ Louisa doesn’t flatter 
you, does she? That’s what’s so puzzling. Why 
you keep on, when really you don’t love her at all.” 

“ I do.” 

“ No. You love the idea of her.” 

“ Call it what you like. The idea of her is very 
beautiful.” 

“ Oh, very. Quite the picture book kind. But 
I should hardly think it was worth what you are 
paying—gambling, rather, because you don’t really 
know at all how it is going to end.” 

“ What am I paying?—Nothing at all.” 

“ On the contrary, you’re paying a great deal. 
You wear the harness already, while she goes 
free.” 

“ Now you have said something which I do not 
understand.” 

“ Don’t you? ” She seemed to struggle not to 
laugh. “ You didn’t dare touch my hand, when I 
laid it on your knee a minute ago, for fear of 
Louisa.” 

“ What nonsense! ” 

“ You’re mortally afraid that Louisa will hear 
that you are the least little bit attentive to anybody 
else, because then the game would be up.” 

“ You’re very much mistaken.” Finley was be¬ 
ginning to feel irritated again. 

“ Indeed I am not,” said Lois, and there was no 
misunderstanding the provocative tone of her voice. 

52 




THE SABLE CLOUD 

He leaned forward quickly and kissed her. 
“ There’s to show you! ” he exclaimed. 

She wriggled away from him, lithe and boneless 
as a cat between his hands, and went and stood by 
the mantel, combing back her hair in front of the 
mirror. She laughed at him over her shoulder. 

“ Tell me, did you ever kiss Louisa? ” she asked. 

He chuckled. “ You’re all right, you are, Lois.” 

“ But did you? ” she insisted. 

“ Only her finger tips.” 

“ Oh, mais mon Dieu! ” She came back towards 
the sofa. “ You poor boy! You’ve fallen in love 
with an icicle, haven’t you? ” 

He shook his head. “No, I’ve seen her eyes 
grow warm.” 

“ For you? ” 

“ Not for me.” He chuckled again. “ For a 
puppy.” 

“ Poor Win! ” She put out her hand and 
stroked his cheek gently as she stood beside the 
sofa, “But you’re an artist, you know. You 
draw her portrait to the life. She lets you kiss her 
finger tips and her eyes grow warm for a puppy! 
Why don’t you give her a puppy? ” 

“ By Jove! that’s an idea! ” he exclaimed, catch¬ 
ing her hand as it stroked his cheek. She let him 
have it quite easily. 

“ Here comes Dadd} 7 ,” she said. 


53 


CHAPTER VI 


When you stop to think of it, a man is apt to 
look like his house. Mr. Edward Livingstone Mor- 
res matched his marble-fronted mansion in Seventy- 
third Street even as Mr. Frederick de Peyster Lea 
matched his gray stone house on University Place. 
Had some super-man been playing picture puzzles 
with the city, fitting inhabitants to habitations, he 
must undoubtedly have put them each in his place. 
Mr. Morres dressed superlatively with the art that 
exhibits the art. His coats never suggested that 
there was any accident about their fitting so per¬ 
fectly. They came from the very best New York 
tailor and they were frankly proud of it. In some 
mysterious fashion they succeeded in suggesting a 
waist where there was none. Mr. Morres rounded 
into his trousers the way soft meal rounds into a 
bag, egg-shaped. Undoubtedly he ate too much 
and too rich food, but if he had not he would have 
been a fine-looking man. He was big, with power¬ 
ful, large hands that had in every-day life con¬ 
sciously to restrain their strength. His head was 
large, heavier at the top than at the bottom, with a 
bald lane down the middle, back and forward, 
dividing a continent of hair on each side each from 
the other as the ocean divides Europe from 
America, the strange thing being that America, so 

54 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


to speak, was gray, while Europe was still black. 
Those who like nicknames called him “ Piebald 
Liv,” but the man was a fool himself who picked 
up Liv Morres for a fool. His heavy, drooping- 
browed face, which looked as though it were meant 
to be ruddy, was rather putty-hued, but it was a 
strong face, a face with intellect back of it, not 
small or mean at all, even a touch of kindliness in 
it. But much more than that, it was a face alertly 
watchful and keenly suspicious as though life had 
not always played fair with it. Not the face of an 
aristocrat at all, but an excellent face for a pluto¬ 
crat. 

About half and half Mr. Morres was a self-made 
man. He was just growing up when his father had 
a lucky inspiration for the improvement of tin 
plates. While from a sweety-fed, fly-specked, 
spilling baby he expanded to the world, the world 
expanded to him. When he was ten years old he 
put on shoes and stockings, definitely, once for all, 
and gave up feeding pigs. When he was fifteen he 
left public school and went to a private one where 
he suffered untold torture and learned, chiefly, the 
depth of human cruelty as demonstrated by the 
young and priggish male. It was there he ac¬ 
quired the watchful, restless roving of the eye 
which became so characteristic of him. Before he 
was through school his father died, and knowing 
that many, notably his own guardian, hungered 
mightily for his tin plates, he gave up the idea of 

55 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

going to college and went straight into the “ Silver 
Bright Tin Plate Company ” the better to watch 
the watchman. By that time he didn’t care a hang 
for the young and priggish male. He had a devil- 
may-care swing to his shoulders, an arrogant 
carriage, a Fortunatus purse and more jewels than 
were good taste. His taste in other matters was 
more conservative than his taste in dress, however, 
and he married a girl who was considerably above 
him in matters of birth and breeding and educa¬ 
tion, though without his singleness of heart in 
matrimonial matters. Looking for a financial 
prop, she might have fared very far and done much 
worse indeed. Looking for a social prop, he might 
have done much better for himself. He never 
kneiv how much quicker she had been to make up 
her mind to marry him than he to marry her. To 
the end he retained the impression that he had had 
a hard wooing. His wife was clever. She was 
also ambitious. “ Silver Brights,” when he got 
them into his own hands, were a bonanza, but 
“ being in Wall Street ” had a better sound in her 
ears than “ being in tin.” So he bought a seat on 
the Stock Exchange. He was not ambitious him¬ 
self. He knew young aristocrats from those pain¬ 
ful school days. He was as happy out of their 
company, and he believed the child Lois would be. 
But his wife died, which was perhaps fortunate, 
as she left him a memory all pure, all lovely, all 
dear, which might not have been the case if she had 

56 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


lived five years longer. When she was gone, her 
wishes for her daughter became binding laws to her 
husband. His first step towards carrying them 
out was to find a lady to come and bring her up, 
be a sort of mother-by-the-month to her. It cost 
him more thought and worry and work than almost 
any other step in his existence. But he seldom 
failed in anything he set himself to do, and he 
found the exact person. 

Miss Johanna Cotenet was poor, but only since 
lately. She wasn’t at all used to it and she didn’t 
at all like it. Her personal equipment, consisting 
chiefly in social savoir faire and prominent rela¬ 
tions, did not fit her to make money except in a 
very restricted field, but was precisely what Mr. 
Morres was looking for. He was delighted to find 
her, and she, though she told her bosom friends, 
who were plentiful, that it was a most trying posi¬ 
tion for a lady to find herself in, cried herself 
to sleep from sheer relief the first night in his 
house. 

Miss Johanna was the sister of Miss Letitia 
Cotenet, Louisa Lea’s school-teacher, and this 
alone, as Mr. Morres was shrewd enough to realize, 
made her worth to him the fabulous salary he paid. 
Through her and only through her could his 
daughter have been admitted to the most select 
classes in the city, have gone to school at Mrs. de 
la Pin’s house and been mates with iSToel and 
Louisa Lea and Zaidee Brown. Incidentally it 

57 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

may be mentioned that he paid double for Lois’s 
tuition. 

The two Miss Cotenets gave a good deal of 
thought to Lois’s upbringing. They felt her to be 
their personal responsibility. And on the whole 
they were very well content with the way she 
turned out. She was, as they told each other, so 
much better than she might have been. 

Although she was decidedly among the more ad¬ 
vanced in her dress and manner, liked to wear her 
gowns abbreviated at both ends and had no ex¬ 
aggerated idea of the importance of stray kisses, 
smoked like a chimney and gambled for as high 
stakes as her adversary dared, and was always a 
little ahead of the game in frankness of conversa¬ 
tion, she knew how to behave herself very well 
when she w T anted to, which w T as not often, and 
could exhibit the most perfect decorum when 
occasion demanded. To older people she could be¬ 
have, if they seemed to her worth the trouble, with 
a sweet humility that captivated them entirely, and 
promptly made them give a dinner for her. Also 
she knew how to present the thin veneer of knowl¬ 
edge she had on a variety of subjects as though it 
covered quite respectable depth, and could listen 
to other people talk in such a way that w T hen they 
left her they carried away the impression that she 
herself had talked with real intelligence. Her 
personality dulled that of Louisa as cerise dulls 
rose. 


58 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


In her father's eyes she was perfect. She had 
his wife's heavy black hair, and her brilliant com¬ 
plexion, his mother's arched eyebrows and narrow 
blue eyes, his father's prominent cheek bones and 
square chin,—how could he not think her perfect? 
He lived for her. She was the heart of his big 
heart. It was almost unimaginably difficult for 
him to refuse her anything she wished. But some 
things he did refuse. He would not drop the last 
letter off Livingstone and he would not spell 
Morres with an “ I." 

Lois knew exactly how he felt about her. She 
believed that no matter what she did he would 
continue to feel precisely the same way, so she 
never bothered to wear her cloak of company man¬ 
ners for his benefit. It was not she who drew away 
her hand when she heard him coming into the 
library, but Finley who dropped it and turned his 
head. She laughed with a ring of amused irony 
which irritated him exceedingly. 

“Well, Had, here you are at last," she said. 
“ I’ve had to go all lengths to keep Mr. Finley from 
going home. He's so disappointed that it isn't a 
party." 

“ I'm not," he protested. 

Mr. Morres's eyes lighted on his face for a 
minute, and then passed away again quickly. 

“ I am sorry Mr. Finley should be disappointed," 
he said. “ I am sure I asked Miss Cotenet to say 
in her note-" 


59 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ It’s not Coty’s fault, 77 interrupted Lois. “ I 
wrote the letter. I 7 11 take the blame. 77 

u There is no blame, Miss Morres, 77 insisted 
Finley. “ You have no idea how precious a quiet 
family evening can seem to a man in bachelor 
quarters. 77 

Once more Mr. Morres 7 s eyes lighted on his face, 
lifted to the top of his head and passed beyond him. 
“ I am sorry my daughter neglected to tell you that 
it was on business I wanted to have you here. Per¬ 
haps in that case you would not have cared to 

come. I am interested in Asphalt, you know- 

But we will talk of that later, if you please. Shall 
we go down, Lois? Dinner is half an hour late 
already. 77 

“ No it isn’t, 77 said Lois. 66 It 7 s you who are 
late. Where’s Coty, anybody know? 77 

“ I believe I heard her go down-stairs. 77 

Miss Cotenet was waiting in the first of the suite 
of drawing-rooms with an expectant welcoming 
smile on her face. But Lois sailed past her just 
as she had sailed past the lackeys, leaving her 
father to present the guest if lie chose. He did 
choose, and Winton offered her his arm to go in to 
dinner. 

Miss Cotenet purred like a cat with pleasure as 
she sat down. She sank herself deliberately in the 
dream that her surroundings were her own and 
that this “ rising young man ” had come especially 
to talk politics with her. Most of Miss Cotenet’s 

60 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


pleasures liad to have this dream quality if they 
were to exist at all. “ You’re going to tell us all 
about the wonderful new pavement you’re going 
to put down in the city, aren’t you, Mr. Finley? ” 
she asked, looking up with what Lois called her 
“ simper ” as he pushed her chair in. 

“ No! ” Mr. Morres shattered her dream rather 
rudely. “Mr. Finley and I will talk about that 
up-stairs after dinner, if he is willing; I don’t want 
him badgered during his meal.” 

It was one of Miss Cotenet’s trials in life that 
he behaved that way occasionally, although, as she 
said to Miss Letitia, it did show that he regarded 
her as almost one of the family. With strangers 
he was always most careful and formal about his 
manners, as though he realized that he did not 
know quite when it was safe to be careless. It was 
of those unspoken hopes, so earnest that they do 
not need words, between the Cotenet sisters that 
the time would come when Mr. Morres would look 
upon Miss Johanna as entirely of the family. 
That time would only arrive, however, if it ever 
did, after Lois was married and gone. In the 
meanwhile that young lady grinned with delight 
and made her governess flush more painfully still 
by asking: 

“What would you like Coty to talk about, 
Daddy? ” 

“ Anything, or-” The sentence was cut 

short by a soup spoon and never begun again. Mr. 

61 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


Morres ate his dinner quickly and thoroughly and 
when he had finished rose suddenly, so suddenly 
that the footman behind his chair had not time to 
pull it out properly, bungled the business, nearly 
tripped his master and got a “ Damn ” fired at his 
frightened head. 

“ Come up-stairs, Finley. We’ll smoke in the 
library.” 

Finley went reluctantly. All through dinner he 
had been wondering at just what instant Mr. 
Morres had come in sight of the tableau by the 
fireplace. He had an uncomfortable feeling that 
he had come an instant too soon, and he looked for¬ 
ward with no pleasure to the possibility of his 
talking about it. The prospect of talking about 
pavements was not much pleasanter, either. He 
did not know why his host was interested in 
them, and that is a state of affairs which always 
makes it difficult for a politician to talk flu¬ 
ently. 

As it turned out, he did not have to talk about 
either. Mr. Morres put a toothpick in his mouth, 
stuck his hands in his trousers pocket, stretched 
his legs out in front of him, stared thoughtfully 
over his toes at the fire and forgot all about his 
guest, or seemed to. 

Finley watched him anxiously for a few minutes. 
Then he lounged back comfortably among the cush¬ 
ions where Lois had nestled before dinner, grinned 
as he thought of her and frowned as he thought of 

62 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Louisa. After a while, not being able to stop 
thinking about Louisa, he rose with sudden impa¬ 
tience, tossed his cigarette stump in the fire and 
stood with his back to the mantel. 

His movement roused Mr. Morres. 

“ Bad business, that Rice purchase,” he re¬ 
marked, shifting the toothpick from one side of his 
mouth to the other. 

“ Hid you lose a great deal? ” asked Finley. 

“ Counting what I stood to make, I did. I guess 
it would come near a million. Not that I care 
about that. The girl don’t need it. She’s got 
enough. What I hate is to be played for a sunfish. 
That gets me. I can’t stand that! ” He slammed 
his fist into his open palm, and bit so hard on his 
toothpick that it splintered in his mouth and he 
had to get up to spit it out into the fire. “ There’s 
nothing in the world makes me hate a fellow like 
his making a fool of me,” he spluttered. “ Got any 
stock? ” 

“ No. I never have had.” 

Mr. Morres dropped back onto the sofa so heavily 
that he bounced. “ Now look here,” he demanded, 
pointing one finger at Finley. u You explain this 
to me if you can. I suppose it’s because I’m what 
these blessed saints call an outsider,’ but I can’t 
get it. I can’t understand their methods. I can’t 
understand one darn thing about the way they do 
business. You’re not an outsider. You ought to 
understand. Explain.” 


63 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I don’t know anything about it except what was 
in the paper.” 

“ That’s just it. Nobody does.” He took an¬ 
other toothpick and chewed on it viciously. “ I was 
a stockholder. Why didn’t I have a right to know? 
Why didn’t they tell us what was up and give us a 
chance to hold on? ” 

“ I thought they had been telling you to hold on, 
imploring you to hold on. Hasn’t there been a 
good deal of criticism of the amount they have 
been spending on advertising? ” 

“ Yes, and giving no reasons. Simply ‘ Trust us, 
we’ll pull you through.’ Everybody thought it was 
to save their precious company from extinction 
they were doing it, not for the good of the stock¬ 
holders.” 

“ But you see if you had trusted them-” 

“ Guess I prefer to trust my senses. Think I’d 
hang on to a thing I can see being strangled before 
my eyes? Gosh! I hate to be played for a sun- 
fish ! ” 

“ Ho you believe they have been playing the stock¬ 
holders? buying it in themselves? ” 

“ Sure. Those who aren’t darn fools. Ho y’ 
know Lea, who’s counsel for the Pan American? 
He’s what I call a darn fool. Hon’t believe he 
made a cent out of it.” 

Finley sat down beside him on the sofa again, 
lighting another cigarette. “ W r hy not? ” he asked. 

“ That’s the kind of a chap he is. He won’t use 

64 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


professional knowledge. I don’t know what he 
thinks he’s got a profession for, but that’s a fact. 
He handled a case for me once, and could have made 
millions on what he learned about the tin business. 
I counted on his doing it. Thought it would re¬ 
duce his fee. But not a bit of it. Made me pay 
through the nose, had no shame about that, but 
wouldn’t touch a bit of tin, lest it dirty his fingers. 
That’s another time he played me for a sunfish, I 
guess.” He paused and his chewing became less 
energetic. “ You can’t help admiring a fellow, 
though, w r hen he takes a stand like that and lives 
up to it. I’ve known him in pretty tight fixes when 
it must have been a jolly temptation.” 

“ I shouldn’t have supposed Mr. Lea had ever 
been in a tight place,” remarked Finley. 

“ Don’t you believe it. He’s flesh and blood like 
the rest of us. He’s got a bit of the gambler in him 
and likes to take a flier uoav and then. And natu¬ 
rally if he won’t look where he’s going, he don’t 
always land where he planned to. Charges big 
enough fees to make up for most of it, though, I 
guess.” 

“ Then you don’t think Mr. Lea is as rich as he 
appears to be? ” asked Finley. 

“ Rich enough for one daughter, I guess.” Mr. 
Morres put his hands over his head and yawned. 
“ I feel better about it now dinner is getting in its 
good work. So you expected a party. Disap¬ 
pointed? ” 


65 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Delighted.” 

Mr. Morres’s chewing had slowed to ruminative 
contentment. 

“ Lo’s no bore, that’s a fact,” he brooded. “ I 
didn’t know you were one of her gang.” 

“ I wish I could consider myself so.” 

“ They have a darned good time. I’ll say that 
much for ’em. Not but what I’ve got to admit it’s 
an eye-opener to me. Believe me, it’s not the kind 
of a time we outsiders imagined Society Leaders 
had, when I was a boy.” There was a sort of 
lusciousness in the way he said “ Society Leaders ” 
as though it was like cream puffs in his mouth. 

“ It’s not the kind of time our fathers had, 
either,” said Finley. 

“ I was thinking more of mothers, myself.” Mr. 
Morres shifted his toothpick again. “ Funny thing 
how restful it is to chew, ain’t it? Lo don’t like 
tobacco or gum, and I try to please Lo. Least you 
can do, I think, when you bring a child into the 
world.” 

“ You don’t care for smoking? ” 

“ Never did. I wish Lo wouldn’t, sometimes. 
But then, a girl’s got to fly with the flock. I 
wouldn’t want her to—well, it’s go that goes in this 
generation and there’s no getting around it. She 
could do the other stunt just as well. Better, I 
guess. More in keeping with her nature and up¬ 
bringing. I never wanted her to be an advanced 
girl. That’s why I didn’t send her to college. I 

66 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


brought her up to make a good wife and to be a 
Society Leader. She's the one now and she'll be 
the other some day. But I hope it won't be too 
soon. Amen." 

He fell silent then and Finley, not seeing pre¬ 
cisely w T hat remark he could appropriately make, 
was silent also. 

Mr. Morres uncrossed his legs, recrossed them 
with the other one on top, and went on again. 
“ Funny how the fashion alters in girls. We used 
to think it was wonderful how they could change 
their shapes to suit, but now they change their 
very natures. You could hardly find one of the old 
style, the quiet, hesitating, take-care-of-me kind, in 
the city, I guess." 

“ There's Lea's daughter, you were just speaking 
of." 

“Louisa Lea? That's right. She's the kind I 
mean. Ancestor Worship and High Church Epis- 
copalianism, blended—that's her. Hice little thing, 
I guess, but-" 

Lois must have opened the parlor door down¬ 
stairs at that moment, because suddenly her voice, 
in a long, clear, rather hard note, rang through the 
house, interrupting her father. Finley turned his 
head to the door and rose to his feet. 

“ Miss Morres is singing," he said, “ couldn't we 
go listen to her? " 

Morres looked up at him. “What about pave¬ 
ments ? " he asked. 


67 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Let them wait for another day/’ suggested Fin¬ 
ley. “ Miss Morres does not always sing.” 

Mr. Morres drew his hands from his pockets and 
hunched himself into a sitting position. “All 
right, run along, my boy. Guess I’ll stay here and 
take a nap. Just leave the door open so I can hear 
her. Good-night. Say, come back a minute. I’ll 
give you a tip if you want it. I’ve landed a big 
contract for Silver Brights in the Argentine. The 
stock will be taking a jump when it’s known. I’m 
letting a few friends in on the ground floor.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Morres. I’ll make the best 
use I am able of that information,” said Finley, 
speculating as he w T ent down-stairs as to whether 
pavements or Lois wns the real bottom of the even¬ 
ing. 

Mr. Morres, meanwhile, sat for a few minutes 
staring into the fire. Then he turned out the lamp, 
put his feet on the sofa with a newspaper under 
them, and went to sleep. 

An hour later Lois coming into the library woke 
him. He rubbed his hands over his eyes and 
yawned. “ Gosh, I had a good sleep. Sit down, Lo. 
I want to talk to you. Are you engaged to Winton 
Finley? ” 

Lois groped in the half light for the matches on 
the mantel before answering. “ ISTo.” 

“ Are you in love with him? ” 

She shrugged her shoulders as she lighted her 
cigarette. “ I don’t know.” 

68 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Come to the point. Do you want to marry 
him?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, you might do worse. He ? ll go a long 
way. Might land in the White House if he had 
money enough.” 

“ He would have money enough if I married 
him.” 

“ You ought to think it over well, Lo. There’s 
the Englishman-” 

“ I don’t want a foreigner.” 

“ Well, I don’t know hut you’re right. You never 
can tell where you stand with a foreigner, and 
there’s no fun being an outsider. I’ve saved you 
that, anywmy, Lo. There’s Mr.-” 

“ I prefer Winton Finley.” 

“ Then you are in love with him.” 

“ I don’t know that I would go as far as that. 
But on the whole I think he’s the best match.” 

“ Well- But I don’t know why you should 

be in a hurry to marry, Lo.” He looked around 
the room with a sort of wistfulness and brought 
his eyes to rest on her face. 

“ I’m not in a hurry, Daddy.” She dropped down 
on the sofa beside him. “ Only I believe in plan¬ 
ning things and not letting chances go by.” 

“ How long has Finley wanted to marry you, 
Lo? I don’t remember hearing you speak of him.” 

“ Oh, he doesn’t want to marry me. He wants 
to marry Louisa Lea.” 


69 





TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ What! ” Mr. Morres spoke with, quick anger. 
But he checked it instantly. “ I wouldn’t want to 
marry a man who was in love with somebody else, 
if I were you, Lo,” he said gently. 

“ But he isn’t in love with her, Daddy; he’s 
nearer being in love with me, if you come to that.” 
Lois smiled a smile which her father did not like. 
“ He simply picked her out as I picked him. And 
he’s going to change his mind.” 

Mr. Morres sat forward in his seat, threw away 
his toothpick and did not replace it. “ You’re a 
mercenary lot, you young people. You ought to 
be ashamed of yourself, Lo. Your mother wasn’t 
like that.” 

“ I don’t know. I don’t remember my mother,” 
said Lo. 

Mr. Morres sighed. “ Drop it,” he pleaded. 

“ No. Why should I? ” 

“ Please.” 

“ Don’t be silly, Daddy! He’s the best match in 
the city. And if you don’t like match-making, it’s 
your own fault. You shouldn’t have asked me.” 

Mr. Morres sighed again. “ Well—I gave him a 
tip on Tin Plates on the chance.” 

“ Thank you, Daddy.” She leaned close to stroke 
his cheek as she had stroked Winton’s. 

“ No need of thanks, Lo. I’ll do all I can for 
you, always. Only fair thing, I think, when you 
bring a child into the world. Guess I’ll go up now. 
I’m all in to-night.” 


70 


TIIE SABLE CLOUD 

At tlie door lie stopped. “ Say, Lo. You sure 
about Louisa Lea? ” 

“ Sure.” 

“ Does sbe love him ? 99 

“ She’s refused him half a dozen times. But her 
father wants her to marry him.” 

“ H’m . . . Lea can’t have everything he 

wants in this world, I guess. Good-night.” 


71 


CHAPTER VII 


A delicious, vague sense of expectancy made 
Louisa smile as she opened her eyes in the morning. 
Not that there was any special cause for it. It 
was merely the joyous anticipation, the ardent 
curiosity which is the essence of youth. No one 
who still has that is yet old; no one who has lost 
it can still call himself young; when one becomes 
aware of it, youth is passing. Louisa was not 
aware of it. She simply woke eagerly to each new 
day. A little more eagerly than usual this morn¬ 
ing, perhaps, because the sun was shining brightly 
and spring was on the wind, but no more because 
she was to ride in the afternoon with Johnny Eo- 
coft than because up in the sky a flock of pigeons 
were wheeling and circling like a troop of cavalry. 
It all went to make up the vague, cool joy that 
spelled life to her. 

She went to the window to look up at the birds 
rising and dipping, bending and twisting like a 
strip of shimmering sinuous silk on the breeze. 
Now and then they dropped towards their cote some¬ 
where on the roofs beyond the Greenwich Village 
house, and then the tip of a long supple wand ap¬ 
peared, waving them up again. They made Louisa 

72 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


see open spaces and depths of glorious sunlight. 
At last, when the wand was withdrawn, and they 
fell like falling stones out of the sky, she went 
down to breakfast, singing on the stairs. 

The dining-room was not conducive to song. Mr. 
and Mrs. Lea were there already, one at either end 
of the table. They looked as though they had been 
watching cats on the back fence rather than birds 
in the sky. Louisa kissed her mother, went silently 
round the table and kissed her father, and sat down 
in her place. Nobody said anything. Mr. Lea 
opened his eyes in wide disapproval of the way the 
bacon was cooked, sent it away and grew impa¬ 
tient before the second batch returned. Mrs. Lea 
looked tired and harassed, forgot to strain her hot 
milk before she poured it into her coffee and then 
tried mournfully to fish the scum out of her cup 
with a spoon. Evidently the “ bother ” of the 
day before had not evaporated in the night, as 
bothers should. 

Remembering the reporters who had kept her an¬ 
swering the telephone till long after bedtime the 
night before, Louisa glanced longingly towards the 
paper lying by the chair in front of the fire where 
her father had been reading it while he waited for 
breakfast. But it was a rule of the house that the 
paper was never brought to the table. Breakfast 
was sacred to good cheer. Lunch was informal, 
come and go as you please, and dinner a function, 
dress and behave in your best. Besides, though it 

73 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


was not actually forbidden, Louisa was not en¬ 
couraged to read the paper at any hour, except the 
Social Notes, where she looked eagerly for her own 
name, and a few articles which her father marked 
for her. There is a great deal in the paper which 
is indecorous and soiling, and Louisa’s mind was 
spotless white. As her mother said, she had never 
read the papers at Louisa’s age, so why should 
Louisa? 

Louisa would very much have liked to ask what 
the bother was all about anyway, but the atmos¬ 
phere was discouraging. 

“ It’s going to be a warm day,” she said at last, 
feeling that somebody really must say something. 

Her mother raised her head from bending over 
her coffee cup, and looked at her with a startled 
expression as though she had said something 
strange. 

“ Yes, dear, I think so,” she agreed after a min¬ 
ute, her eyes wandering over the window-panes be¬ 
hind the tin ivy as though the question required 
close attention. 66 I think it will be warm. It is 
the season.” 

“ There’ll be another month of cold weather be¬ 
fore spring comes,” her husband corrected her 
sharply. “Why don’t you pour yourself another 
cup of coffee, Lizzie, instead of fishing around in 
that one all this time? ” 

“ Why, Fred, this will be all right. The idea of 
wasting it.” 


74 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 

“No idea at all. Bring another cup to Mrs. 
Lea.” 

That ended the conversation. 

The house seemed to heave a sigh of relief when 
he closed the front door behind him, going down¬ 
town to his office. But the bloom was off the day. 
Louisa wandered rather aimlessly into the library 
and up the steps to the gallery where her mother 
was puckering her brow over a piece of tapestry 
work. 

At that hour of the morning the sun flooded in 
through the back windows so the room was all 
a-sparkle with light. The gold in the book bind¬ 
ings flashed here and there like stones, the polished 
floor was splashed with reflection like dark 
water, and the old Turkish rugs seemed to drink 
the light down into the depths of their warm 
colors. 

Mrs. Lea was sitting close to the rail of the gal¬ 
lery where she could look down at it all. She 
raised her head as she heard Louisa come in 
through the door below, and watched her come 
up the steps and round the gallery. She was one 
of those people to whom love is a pain, an oppres¬ 
sion, an unappeasable longing. It could never find 
outlet in words, hardly in deeds, because it was 
stronger than her character. She tried to pour it 
out through her eyes, faded, inadequate eyes with 
nothing behind them but love, like a haunting fear. 
The sight of her daughter made her feel like cry- 

75 


I 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


ing. She raised her face to be kissed. Always 
she raised her face to be kissed when Louisa ap¬ 
proached, even if she had only been away five min¬ 
utes. 

“ Well, dear, what are yon going to do to-day ? 99 
she asked. 

“ Freddie Carroll is coming on the one o’clock 
train, and in the afternoon I am going riding with 
Johnny,” answered Louisa. 

“ What will Freddie do? ” 

“ She can come too, if she likes. There’s the 
color you want for the shadow on that leaf.” 

“ Thank you, dear. I’ve been looking all over 
for that hank of worsted. Your father thinks very 
highly of Winton Finley. You don’t think you like 
him, dear? ” 

“ Yes, I like him very much. I always have.” 

“ But not-? ” 

“No.—Not.” Louisa rose. 

Mrs. Lea looked up at her and smiled. “ What 
is my little girl going to do this morning? ” she 
asked. 

“ Nothing special.” 

“ You might practice.” 

“ No.” 

“ Put on your coat and go for a little walk, just 
around the Square. It will make you feel better.” 

“ I feel perfectly well.” 

“ Take a book, dear, and sit down and read. 
You look tired.” 


76 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I think I will go to my room and do something 
there.” 

“ Well, dear. You have a very nice room.” She 
lifted her face to be kissed and, resting her hands 
on Louisa’s shoulders, held her for a minute, look¬ 
ing up into her face. 

“ You’re not worrying about Mr. Finley, are you, 
dear? ” 

“ 'Not in the least.” 

“Well, dear, if anything troubles you, you will 
bring it straight to Mamma and talk it over with 
her, won’t you, dear? That’s what God gives us 
mammas for.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Louisa, and went up-stairs yawn¬ 
ing. 


•j 


77 


CHAPTER VUE 


The news that Mr. Lea was in a bad temper went 
around his office as quick as thought. The office 
boy, who was waiting to get into the elevator as 
Mr. Lea got out, discovered it in the half-minute’s 
glimpse he had of him, and before the Boss had 
reached the door of his sanctum his secretary in 
her cubicle received the information. She followed 
him into his office. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Lea.” 

“ Open the window—please. Good-moming.” 

The wind off the bay cut keen and piercing into 
the steam-heated room. 

“ There are several reporters here waiting to see 
you, Mr. Lea.” 

“ I won’t see them.” 

“ I told them I did not know whether you would 
be in this morning. Some of them went away and 
some of them waited.” 

“ I don’t want to see them.” 

u It’s about the Pan American.” 

“ Send them up there.” 

“ Most of them have been.” 

“ Damn that wind. Shut the window. Send 
them in here.” 

“ I will. Mr. Rocoft has called several times on 

78 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


the telephone. He said he would be around to see 
you some time during the morning.” 

“ Ask him in when he comes.” 

“Mr. Livingstone Morres has called, too, and 
Mr. Finley and Mr. de la Pin. They wouldn’t any 
Of them leave messages.” 

“All right. Send those reporters in and let’s 
get that over.” 

He opened his eyes wide at them when they came, 
and played a tune on the blotter with his fingers. 
“ Good-morning, gentlemen. What can I do for 
you? Sit down. I think you can all find chairs, 
though your name is legion.” 

They smiled collective recognition of this mild 
joke. 

“ Now! I am very busy this morning. Let’s 
come to business. What is it you want to speak 
to me about? ” 

“ This Rice Patent Purchase is a very important 
thing, Mr. Lea.” 

“Very important. If you want my opinion it’s 
going to bring down the price of bread from one to 
three cents a loaf all over the country. It’s going 
to raise rice to a par with wheat as a staple com¬ 
modity. All the rice in the world will have to be 
brought here for refining and if will affect our 
whole foreign trade. It will necessitate the draft¬ 
ing of new treaties—or whatever it is the Senate 
wants ’em called.” 

“ It’s one of the finest things for the prosperity 

79 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


of the country that has happened for a long time,” 
remarked one of the young men, as a sort of 
prompt, when Mr. Lea paused. 

“ Huh! Glad you see it. Emphasize that side 
of the question and let the sensational go. Better 
go up to the Pan American and talk to their ex¬ 
perts. I can’t tell you much; I’m only counsel.” 

“ If the Joint Purchase had been carried out, 
wouldn’t all you say have been true in an even 
greater extent, Mr. Lea? ” 

Mr. Lea shrugged his shoulders, picking up a 
pencil as a hint that the interview might now end. 

“ It’s pretty darn tough on the small companies,” 
remarked a cub among the visitors, and got his toes 
trodden on softly by his neighbor. 

“ The Pan American will look after them all 
right,” the treader assured him. “ Consolidate or 
something.” 

“ There’s the Sherman law they’ve got to keep 
clear of.” 

Mr. Lea brought his pencil down on his desk 
with a vigor that broke the point. 

“ Look here, gentlemen. I can’t tell you any¬ 
thing about Pan Aanerican plans. I don’t know 
’em, and if I did I couldn’t tell ’em to you. If you 
want them, go and talk to the President, Mr. de la 
Pin. But I can say this. As long as I’m counsel 
for the Company they’ll never fall foul of the Sher¬ 
man law and the little companies will get fair play. 
That’s the w T ay I do business.” 

80 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ We know that, Mr. Lea. Your name stands for 
fair dealing in this town.” 

Mr. Lea shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Was it quite fair, though, buying over the 
heads of the small companies like that? ” asked the 
cub. 

“ Huh! ” grunted Mr. Lea. “ Anything else I 
can do for you? ” 

“ Wonderful the way you managed to keep the 
matter so quiet, Mr. Lea.” 

“ Secrecy was of the essence. Should have had 
all the other companies fighting us tooth and nail 
if they had had any idea what we were up to. And 
also it was only fair to our stockholders that they 
should all learn it at once. That could only be 
accomplished in the way we did it.” 

It was in the middle of this sentence that the 
door opened and the secretary announced: “ Mr. 
Rocoft.” 

“ Hello, John. Sit down. I’ll be with you in a 
minute. These gentlemen are here after informa¬ 
tion about the Pan American. Anything more? ” 

“ You say, Mr. Lea, that it was fair to the stock¬ 
holders. Hundreds of them are ruined.” 

“ Through no fault of the Company. We’ve been 
urging them to hold on. Why, man, the Company 
has spent thousands of dollars circularizing and 
putting advertisements in the papers imploring the 
stockholders to hold on.” 

“ Yes, but-” 


81 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


A quarter of an hour later, as they were about 
to leave, the cub put his foot in it a third time. 

“ I suppose you have very large interests in the 
Pan American, Mr. Lea,” he said. 

Mr. Eocoft, who had been standing by the win¬ 
dow looking out at the boats on the river and tap¬ 
ping the glass impatiently with a coin, paused to 
listen to the answer. 

“ I don’t own a single share.” 

“You- Why, Mr. Lea, it’s impossible! 

They’ve been selling at 10and you have known 
all about it.” 

“ None! ” 

“ Mrs. Lee, perhaps? ” The cub was quite irre¬ 
pressible. 

Mr. Lea frowned, pushed his chair back and half 
rose. “ Neither Mrs. Lea nor I have one cent in 
the Pan American Company, sir. That is not the 
way I do business. You are welcome to put that 
in the paper, if you wish, though why it should 
interest anybody, with the possible exception of 
my trades-people, I cannot conceive. Good-morn¬ 
ing, gentlemen.” 

He sank back in his chair with a sigh and turned 
to Mr. Eocoft as the door closed behind them. 
“ That’s done, thank goodness! Have a cigar. Do 
you remember the story Dr. Noble used to tell 
about the reporter who-” 

“ Let Dr. Noble wait for another day, Fred. I 
haven’t much time this morning.” 

82 




THE SABLE CLOVE 


u Neither have I. Is it business? ” 

“ Yes. I am sorry I sold my stock in the Pan 
American.” 

“ So are a good many other people.” 

“ Why didn’t you tell me to hang on? ” 

“ Good lord, man, I did, a dozen times.” 

“ Yes, but each time you told me you were not 
buying yourself. Deeds speak louder than words.” 

“ Not always. I gave you the best advice I could. 
It is my misfortune that I was not able to act on it 
myself.” 

“ But you didn’t give me any reasons.” 

“ I wasn’t free to give reasons.” The muscles 
around Mr. Lea’s eyes tautened, a sign that he was 
keeping them closed with difficulty, and that his 
temper was rising. 

“ You might have done something, to prove you 
were speaking the truth,” said Mr. Rocoft. 

At this Mr. Lea allowed his eyes to open so wide 
that they showed white all around the iris. “ I am 
not accustomed to consider that I need to prove I 
am telling the truth, Rocoft.” 

“ Oh, hang it all, Fred, I didn’t mean it that way. 
I beg your pardon.—I’ve been hard hit.” 

Mr. Lea’s eyes closed again to normal dimen¬ 
sions. 

“ I am sorry, John. But I don’t think you can 
fairly hold me to blame. I could have made pretty 
much any amount myself, and it would have come 
in very handy to me just now.” He paused but, as 

83 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Mr. Rocoft said nothing, went on again. “ It’s a 
fine thing, though, one that raises your faith in 
human nature, one that is worth a good deal more 
than money, to know that among all the men con¬ 
cerned in this thing, with millions of dollars in 
their hands to close on without the possibility of 
the law touching them, not one of them would 
smudge his honor to make a cent or to give a tip. 
That’s the sort of person I like to do business 
with.” 

“ You believe it? n 

“ Do I believe it?—I ” He interrupted him¬ 
self to answer the telephone. “Morres? Good¬ 
morning. I didn’t make a fortune, and I wasn’t 
giving tips. No—ha ha—not at all. Glad to be 
interrupted. Rocoft’s here going at me hammer 
and tongs for the same reason.—Leave me to 
his mercy, you say? He hasn’t got any mercy— 
good-bye.—Yes, certainly I believe it.” 

“ I don’t.” 

“ Time will show.” 

“It will never show how many tips they gave. 
What harm would it have done a single soul to 
have said to me ‘ I know ’ instead of ‘ I believe ’? ” 

“ That’s not the way I do business.” 

“You do business after the manner of Don 
Quixote.” 

Mr. Lea shrugged his shoulders. “We each have 
our own opinion about that. Look here, Rocoft, 
drop it. I’ve had enough of it. You didn’t come 

84 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 

here to cry over spilt milk, I suppose. Let’s get 
to business.” 

“ Right! Johnny wants to set up in business. 
Doesn’t like brokerage, wants to leave my office 
and go in with young Moreau Learning and Bob 
Phillipse. It’s a good opening. Steel castings un¬ 
der the wing of L Learning and Co.’ You know.” 

“ Of course I know Learning and Company. And 
I know the two boys, too. I shouldn’t think he 
could get anything better.” 

“ Neither do I. But he needs capital. And after 
this loss in the Rice Company I don’t know where 
to put my hand on it.” 

“ Did you make very heavy losses? ” 

“ Three hundred thousand, I calculate.” 

Lea whistled. “ That’s crippling! ” 

“ It wouldn’t be, if it hadn’t come just now.” 

“ I wish I could help you. But I have made 
some unfortunate investments myself, and I’m 
pretty short.” 

“You are? I was thinking about that mort¬ 
gage.” 

Mr. Lea’s eyes opened and shut like a flash. He 
picked up a pencil and looked at the point of it. 
“ Well? ” he said. 

“ I suppose it wouldn’t be convenient for you to 
pay it? ” asked Rocoft. 

“ I’ll pay it if you call it.” 

“ I hate to—if it’s inconvenient. How about re¬ 
ducing it? The property has depreciated in value.” 

85 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u It will come back. All that Washington 
Square section is improving.” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“Ask anybody’s opinion you want. However, 
Iil sell, if you wish.” 

“ Sell, Fred! Would you have to sell to pay? ” 

“ That or the Isle du Nord place.” 

“ Good lands! You might have paid out of your 
vest pocket if you hadn’t played Don Quixote! ” 

Out of sight behind his chair Mr. Lea waved his 
pencil like an agitated cane. “ I’ll put Leaside on 
the market at once.” 

“ Hang it all, Fred, I don’t want you to do that.” 

“ If I can get a purchaser in time, I would rather 
sell it than the town house.” 

“ I don’t want you to do that either, Fred. How 
much can you pay conveniently? ” 

“ Let me see.” Mr. Lea began cyphering on a 
piece of paper. “ I should think Leaside, furnished, 
must be worth pretty nearly two hundred thousand, 
shouldn’t you? It’s mortgaged at ninety. The dif¬ 
ference is-” 

“ What! that isn’t mortgaged too! ” exclaimed 
Eocoft. “ Why, Fred, you’re a fool, to do business 
like this. You’re worse than a fool with a daughter 
dependent on you, and a daughter you’ve brought 
up to be as helpless and fragile as a china doll. 
What do you think is going to become of Louisa if 
you go on like this? She’ll be a public charge.” 

“ She’ll never be a charge on you, I can tell you.” 

86 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“Now look here, don’t get angry because I’m 
talking common sense to you. You’ve brought 
Louisa up like a millionairess, like the princess 
who couldn’t sleep because there was a rose leaf 
under the mattress. Now w T hat do you expect her 
to do? Marry money? ” 

“ We will leave Louisa out of the question, if 
you please. She will never marry into your family. 
Set your mind at ease about that.” 

“ No. My boy has no money. Not enough to set 
himself up in business.” 

Mr. Lea stood up. “ Is there anything else? ” he 
asked. “ If I remember right the mortgage falls 
due in September and you are to give me three 
months’ notice in writing if you intend to call it. 
You need have no worry about its being paid.” 

Mr. Rocoft stood up too. “ I will let you know 
what I decide. Good-day.” With his hand on the 
door he stopped and turned back. “Don’t let’s 
part like this, Fred. Come out and lunch with me.” 

Mr. Lea did not raise his eyes from his desk. 
“ Sorry. I am busy to-day,” he said. 


87 


CHAPTER IX 


Mr. Lea was, in his business, a highly success¬ 
ful man, and his success was due, in part at least, 
to the fact that he never lost time at the joints, 
never wasted minutes thinking how unpleasant 
things were. He rang at once for his stenographer, 
after Mr. Rocoft had left, and began dictating let¬ 
ters as calmly as though the back of his mind were 
not seething with the consciousness that a friend 
was lost and a home in danger. He dictated a 
dozen letters but his secretary had time to tran¬ 
scribe but few of them. She was busy all day an¬ 
swering the telephone, putting off inquiries about 
the Pan American and turning away visitors. Of 
all the people who called to see Mr. Lea that morn¬ 
ing, only one other was admitted—Winton Finley. 

Mr. Lea rose to greet him with unconcealed de¬ 
light. 

“ Well, Winton. Fm glad to see you. Sit down, 
my boy. You haven’t come to badger me because 
I didn’t drop stolen lollipops in your mouth, eh? ” 

There was perhaps the least shade of a pause be¬ 
fore Finley answered. “ FTo, sir. I have not.” Or 
perhaps there was no outward pause, only a faint 
inward one. 

Mr. Lea leaned back in his chair. “I suppose 
you have come on some kind of business, though. 

88 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Let it wait. Well call this a recess. I’m tired. 
Help yourself to a cigar.” 

Finley picked one out from the box on the desk. 

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling up to the mark, 
Mr. Lea. You ought to go away for a while, to 
Florida or somewhere.” 

Mr. Lea took a long, comfortable puff on his 
cigar and wiggled his shoulders into an easier 
angle against the back of his chair. 

“ It’s not bodily fatigue. It’s not a weariness 
which climate can affect. I’m sick of the world, 
Winton.” His smile dropped and with its drop¬ 
ping a sense of added years crept over his face. 
“ I’m sick of the world and its ways and its people. 
Human nature is like a scavenger. It doesn’t care 
what it is it feeds on, as long as it feeds. The smell 
of gold attracts it as carrion attracts a vulture. 
If you try keeping ’em off they tear and scratch 
you.—Well, what is it? ” 

The telephone bell had rung. 

“ Mr. White? No, I don’t want to speak to him. 
Well,—put him on. Good-morning, White. Why 
didn’t I give you a tip about the Rice deal? Never 
was a tip to give that I know anything about. 
Sorry. I’d be glad to be of use to you. How’s the 
boy? Pulling himself together? I’m glad to hear 
it. Send him up to our house whenever he cares to 
come. We’re always glad to see him. Good-bye.” 

He hung up the receiver again. “ Sad thing, the 
death of Noel de la Pin. It seems so unnecessary. 

89 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


It pretty nearly knocked out young Bobby White. 
You remember Bob, don’t you? That handsome 
blond boy up at Isle du Yord? A nice young chap. 
—But his father is like the rest of them—after 
pickings. I’ve had the deuce of a morning, Win- 
ton,—and the deuce of an evening yesterday.” 

“ As quick as that? People didn’t waste much 
time, did they? ” 

“ It was the reporters yesterday. I’ll be hanged 
if I know how the papers learn about j>eople’s move¬ 
ments the way they do. . . . They were told here 
and at my house that I was away. But did they be¬ 
lieve it? Hot a bit. They knew as well as you did 
that I was at home. The telephone rang on an 
average every five minutes till eleven o’clock when 
we unhung the receiver. How they find out is be¬ 
yond me.” 

“ I suppose the truth is a good many people 
whom we never suspect of it are on the lookout for 
bits of information for them,” suggested Finley. 

“ I suppose that’s it,” agreed Mr. Lea. “ I some¬ 
times think it’s the servants. They wouldn’t be 
above earning a few cents spying on their employ¬ 
ers, the best of ’em. Let’s not talk about it any 
more. I’d like to forget it for a while; there’s 
plenty still ahead of me. I was sorry you didn’t 
stay to tea yesterday.” 

“ I couldn’t.—I couldn’t stand it.—Is there any 
hope for me, Mr. Lea? Will Louisa ever come 
around? ” 


90 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Of course she will.” Mr. Lea’s tone gave dou¬ 
ble assurance. “ Don’t worry about that.” 

“ I don’t worry. Hot more than I can help. I 
shan’t as long as she doesn’t care for anybody else.” 

“ She doesn’t.” Mr. Lea smiled paternally. 
“ The trouble with Louisa is that she is a child 
still. She is one of those people who develop late. 
All our family do. At her age I was—well, I was 
doing a man’s work, to be sure, but I was a boy at 
heart. Loved to play at life rather than live it. 
That’s the way with Louisa—reality frightens her.” 

a Perhaps it would be wiser for me to keep away 
for a year or so, then.” 

“ By no means. There’s not a hair’s breadth be¬ 
tween childhood and womanhood at her age. She’ll 
cross the line at the snap of a finger. Let it be your 
finger, Winton. She likes you already.” 

“ I know she does. She is so sweet to me that 
sometimes I think she is really coming to do more. 
But then, when I ask her, it’s like yesterday. I 
believe she is playing with me.” 

“ Perhaps.” Mr. Lea nodded his head slowly. 
“ But if she is playing, it’s the eternal feminine 
waking in her, and we love ’em for it, even when 
we are the mice to their cats. Eh, don’t we, my 
boy? Don’t let your cigar go out over it.” 

Finley looked at the end of it, smiling. “If I 
could only feel sure-” 

“ You have my assurance.” Mr. Lea frowned 
slightly as though he did not like to be obliged to 

91 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


reiterate. “ Before tlie winter is over, Louisa will 
accept you. Both her mother and I wish it.” 

There was silence after that for a few minutes. 

A line was folding in and out between Mr. Lea’s 
eyes as though an unpleasant thought was coming 
into his mind, being thrown out and persistently 
returning. Finley watched it without interrupt¬ 
ing, till the older gentleman spoke. 

“ I’ve had a disagreeable experience this morn¬ 
ing, and I don’t know just what to do. I don’t 
want to be pig-headed, you know, Winton. But I 
won’t be bullied.” He leaned forward to pick up a 
pencil—he could think more comfortably with 
something in his hand. “ John Kocoft was hard 
hit in this rice deal and it’s come at a most unfor¬ 
tunate time for him, just when he needs the money 
to set his boy up in business. I’m sorry. But he 
takes the attitude that I am responsible, that I 
ought to have given him a tip because we were old 
friends. And I won’t stand for that. I wouldn’t 
stand it from my own brother if I had one.” He 
broke the tip of the pencil with a vicious stab at 
the desk, looked at it and threw it down. He 
jumped to his feet and began walking up and down. 

“ That is flat—definite—I won’t stand it. But— 
I don’t want to be responsible for young John los¬ 
ing this opportunity, either. I don’t want to stand 
in the way of any man’s chances. I don’t want that 
on my conscience.—I am very much puzzled, Win- 
ton. I don’t know what to do.” 

92 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I don’t see that you can do anything, Mr. Lea. 
If yon wished to let him in on the rice transaction, 
it is too late. The chance has passed. He surely 
can’t expect you to make good his losses out of 
your own pocket.” 

Mr. Lea came back to his chair and sat 
down, leaning forward across the desk towards 
Finley. 

“ That’s just it, Winton. Years ago when I was 
first married, Rocoft persuaded me to buy the place 
at Isle du Nord—next door to his, you know. We 
wanted to be neighbors. But in those days I was a 
poor young man. I didn’t have the cash, and he 
did. So I mortgaged the University Place house to 
him for $100,000. Of course I could have paid it 
off long ago, and I should have. It’s pure procras¬ 
tination on my part that I haven’t.—But among all 
the important things there are to do, one that seems 
unimportant slips through the years undone. You 
know how it is.” 

u Everyone who has to do with big affairs, knows 
how it is,” agreed Finley. 

“ Exactly. Well. Now he needs that money and 
the question is, ought I to pay it? It isn’t due until 
September. But I ought to pay it now. To-day.” 

“ To-day! ” exclaimed Finley. “ Most people 
would find it rather difficult to pay $100,000 on 
such short notice as that.” 

“ Whether it is difficult or not is not the point. 
The point is ought I to pay it? I ought to have 

93 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


years ago. I wish the deuce I had.—But you know, 
Winton, when you have so many other people’s 
affairs on your shoulders—when you’re responsible 
for the millions of a man’s wealth and the hundreds 
of a woman’s poverty, you’re apt to let your own 
affairs slip. You can’t put them first, as I suppose 
you should in this world.” 

“ Of course you can’t,” agreed Finley. 

Mr. Lea threw himself back in his chair. 

“ If I do pay it now, won’t it look like an admis¬ 
sion that I was in the wrong not to tell him about 
the Pan American? That is the ground he puts it 
on. And by Jove, I won’t stand it! It’s insult¬ 
ing ! ” His eyes opened suddenly and closed again 
very narrow. They blazed at Finley through a 
slit. “ He insulted me, I tell you. He can get his 
money where he can. He can’t get it from me.” 
He pulled his watch from his pocket. “ I have an 
appointment with de la Pin in half an hour. Is 
there anything special you wanted to speak about, 
Winton? ” He held up his hand before Finley had 
time to answer. “ Rocoft and I were room¬ 
mates at college,” he said inconsequentially. 
“ Well, what is it? ” 

Finley did not seem to find it entirely easy to 
say what it was. 

“ I-” he began, and then, changing his sen¬ 

tence, made another start. “ This is confidential, 
Mr. Lea.—I have an opportunity to invest money 
in a certainty. There is no question about its be- 

94 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


ing straight any more than there would have been 
if you had told me about Pan American.” 

“ You want to be very sure of that. Certainties 
are dangerous.” 

“ I am absolutely sure. IPs Silver Brights. Liv 
Morres told-” 

Mr. Lea held up a finger, interrupting. 

“Are you sure you are at liberty to tell me?” 
he asked. 

Finley hesitated. “ To tell you? I believe I am, 
sir. You are Louisa’s father.” 

Mr. Lea smiled. “ Go on,” he said, nodding his 
head. 

“Well. Piebald Liv has signed a contract for 
tin plates in the Argentine. It is all signed and 
delivered—a fait accomplis. As soon as it becomes 
knowm the stock will take a flier.” 

Mr. Lea nodded thoughtfully. His head waved 
slowly like a mandarin’s. “ Why is it being kept 
secret ? ” he asked. 

“ To alloAv Mr. Morres’s friends a little time, I 
believe. The stock is low now. It’s easy to get 
hold of.” 

“ Huh! ” Mr. Lea picked up the pencil again, 
raising his eyebrows. “ So that’s the way he does 
business. Well, it’s one way. How do you come 
to be among the lucky ones, Winton? ” 

Finley laughed. “ Gratitude, you know, sir. A 
lively appreciation of favors to come. He is inter¬ 
ested in asphalt, I understand—pavements.” 

95 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I see.” Mr. Lea looked closely at the pencil 
point, picking at it with his thumb nail in an effort 
to uncover the lead once more. He made little 
“ T ” sounds with his lips. “ Well, Winton,” he 
said at last. “ It’s a question you’ve got to decide 
for yourself. You know the ins and outs of the 
business, and I don’t. All I can say is, don’t lay 
burdens on your conscience. It doesn’t pay. Fur¬ 
ther than that I can’t help you.” 

Finley looked mystified. “ What question is 
this, sir? ” he asked. 

“ Whether you are at liberty to make usei of 
Morres’s tip.” 

“ Oh—as to that, sir, I am satisfied.” 

“ Very well, my boy, if you are, I am. Only re¬ 
member one pays one’s debts.” 

“ That goes without saying. But—the point is, 
I have no money with which to make use of it.” 

“ Ah.” Mr. Lea laughed as though for some rea¬ 
son he found the statement amusing. “ That’s 
where the shoe pinches, is it? I’m sorry, Winton. 
I’d be glad to help you, but—we must remember 
I am Louisa’s father, and borrowing is no way to 
start.” 

Finley sat looking down for some time without 
speaking. 

“ I suppose you’re right, sir,” he said, raising his 
head at last. “ But—it’s largely on Louisa’s ac¬ 
count that I hate to let the chance pass-” 

“ Hold hard, Winton. A chance is not a chance 

96 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


unless you are free to take it. That’s been my 
motto through life. That’s where the difference 
comes between serving God and serving Mammon. 
Remember that. I’d let you have the money in a 
minute. But it wouldn’t do. There must never 
be a question of money between you and me. You 
can raise it easy enough somewhere else. You’re 
well enough known not to have to put all your 
cards on the table. Try White, try de la Pin, and 
that fellow Jones. Now go along, my boy. I’ve 
got to get some work done. Come to the house 
whenever you can.” 


97 



CHAPTER X 


Winton Finley went to White and to de la Pin 
and lastly to “ that fellow Jones.” He had a cer¬ 
tain amount of success—how much, the matter be¬ 
ing entirely relative, it is hard to gauge. From 
Jones’ office he went straight to his own, where he 
found a message from Liv Morres asking him to 
meet him for lunch at the Down-Town Lunch Club. 

But Piebald Liv made it a habit to eat early be¬ 
fore the crowd, and by the time Finley arrived he 
was through his meal and settled before the fire in 
the entrance hail chewing on his everlasting tooth¬ 
pick. 

“ Over here, Finley,” he called. “ I couldn’t wait 
for you, and I’m through. Got to have my feed on 
time, whatever happens. Are you too hungry to 
talk now? If you are, come over later to my office. 
I want a few words with you about Silver Brights.” 

Winton dropped on the sofa beside him. “ Now, 
if you please,” he said. 

Morres moved slightly so as to get a clear view 
of the hall, which Finley had shut off from him. 
He did it quietly, as though by chance. 

“ That Argentine deal has got out somehow. It’s 
not widely known yet. But in the last hour two 
men have been to my office inquiring about it. 
Beats me how they got wind of it. White and de 

98 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


la Pin. It will be all over town by nigbt. If you 
want to get in on tbe ground floor you’ll have to act 
quickly.” 

“ I haven’t been letting grass grow under my 
feet, I assure you, Mr. Morres. But I’ve got to 
raise the money. I have a few thousand only on 
hand. I want much more than that. I’ll have it in 
two or three days, I hope. But not before.” 

“ How much are you after? ” asked Morres. His 
legs were stretched out towards the fire. He twisted 
his feet slowly at the ankles, watching the shiny 
spots on the toes of his shoes where the light struck 
circle with their motion. Whenever a man crossed 
the hall going in or out, he raised his head and 
looked at him. 

“ I hope for $50,000,” said Finley. u But I am 
not sure. I am borrowing, and, to tell the truth, it 
is a new experience to me.” 

“ We all have to do it,” remarked Morres. “ I 
tell you what I’ll do. I’ll lay a block of stock aside 
and hold it for you at present prices for a few days. 
You can have it wdien vou want it. Don’t thank 
me.” He shrugged his shoulders. u Maybe I’m a 
cynic. But nine times out of ten I believe there’s 
nothing to thank a man for. He does a thing be¬ 
cause it suits him to do it, and he wouldn’t do it if 
it didn’t suit him.” He spat his toothpick dexter¬ 
ously into the fire and hunched himself high in his 
seat—he had slipped down so his head was almost 

against the back of the sofa. 

99 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


il It gets me how things get out! ” he exclaimed. 
u There aren’t more than half a dozen men lmow 
about this deal, and all of ’em hand picked. Yet 
here it’s all over town, spreading like wild-fire. It’s 
next to impossible to keep a thing secret.’ 7 

“ Mr. Lea was saying the same thing about the 
Pan American.” 

Mr. Morres turned to look at him with interest. 
“ You don’t mean they weren’t ready to have that 
known? I should have said that was one of the 
few things where secrecy had been successfully 
kept.” 

“ I guess it was. Only, Mr. Lea was sore because 
the reporters got after him last evening. He 
wanted them to believe he was out of town, and 
they didn’t.” 

Morres laughed, feeling in his pocket for a fresh 
toothpick. “ They’re a clever lot all right. Here’s 
Lea coming in now. And Rocoft.” 

The two men followed each other out of adjoin¬ 
ing quarters of the revolving door, stopped and 
faced each other for an instant and then without 
exchanging a word, turned and walked in opposite 
directions. 

Morres whistled under his breath. 66 Now what 
do you think of that! ” he exclaimed. “ Not so 
much as a howdy between them. Lea looks as 
though he’d swallowed a persimmon. Say! I’ve 
got the reputation of knowing what’s what, haven’t 
I?” 

100 


1 c 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


Finley nodded. 

“ Kind of uncanny knowledge of other men’s af¬ 
fairs. Do you know how I get it? I get it by 
lunching early and sitting here while the other fel¬ 
lows come in. It’s the front seat in the gallery. 
Take those two. They’ve quarreled, that’s clear. 
If I was interested in either one of them, couldn’t 
I find out within twenty-four hours what it’s about? 
Less than that. This morning I called up Lea 
about Pan American and he told me Rocoft was 
there on the same business. He said he was going 
at him hammer and tongs. If I was guessing I’d 
guess they quarreled because Lea didn’t tip Rocoft, 
and I’ll bet I wouldn’t be far from the mark.” 

“ You’d have hit the bull’s-eye,” said Finley, 
laughing. 

“Eh?” Morres looked at him in surprise. 
“ What do you know about it? ” 

“ Kot much. Only there’s some mix-up over a 
mortgage Rocoft holds on Lea’s house. He wants 
the money to set his son up in business and Lea 
won’t pay it.” 

“ Short? ” 

“ Ko. Stubborn. Afraid it will look like an ad¬ 
mission he ought to have tipped him.” 

“ Huh! Lea beats me. Well, I’ll let you go eat 
your lunch now. Gosh, what a low seat.” With a 
hand on the arm of the sofa he pulled himself lum- 
beringly to his feet. Winton, agile and distin¬ 
guished looking, w r as up in half the time. 

101 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u The time is coming around to think of the fall 
election, Mr. Morres,” he said. “Are you inter¬ 
ested? ” 

“ Mildly.” 

“ I hope you will be more than that. It’s a crisis 
in our city affairs, I consider. If the respectable 

elements don’t stand together and elect-” 

Mr. Morres moved off towards the door. “ Let’s 
talk about that another time. You must be hungry. 
Come around to the house any time you feel like it. 
Lois and I will always be glad to see you. I don’t 
suppose you’re often free in the evening, are you? ” 
“ Oftener than Miss Morres is, I’m afraid,” an¬ 
swered Finley. 

“ She does go out a lot, that’s a fact. People like 
her. She’s as popular as any girl in New York, I 
guess. Better telephone before you come if you 
want to be sure to find her. I’ll call you up myself 
in a few days, anyway. Don’t delay any more than 
you have to about the stock.” 

“ I won’t, Mr. Morres. Thank you.” 

Finley walked across the hall with him and stood 
beside the revolving door till it had turned and let 
him out into the street. 

He had a reputation for good manners, and a 
reputation also for frankness. 


102 



CHAPTER XI 


At just about this same hour, Louisa walked into 
the Grand Central Station to meet her cousin Fred¬ 
die Carroll. Louisa had a special expression for 
public places, but it was not affectation because she 
was not aware of it. Her lips closed a little firmer 
than usual, her nose tilted up the least little bit 
and her eyes looked unseeingly through the fore¬ 
ground into secret distances. Chief, her collie, 
moved stately beside her and three steps back of 
her a footman in livery walked as a bodyguard. 
If the city had been hers, her progress could have 
been little different. 

She took up her position close outside the train- 
gate, while Chief sat on one side of her and on the 
other the footman stood a few feet away to keep 
the crowd from jostling her. A good many people 
noticed her, and a few, recognizing her from her 
pictures, 'whispered her name, but as far as she 
was concerned, she might have been entirely alone. 
She was singularly unobservant in a crowd. Her 
mind retired into its shell and busied itself with 
its own concerns. At this minute it had two con¬ 
cerns. She was wondering, superficially, whether 
Freddie could be bluffed into believing the footman 

103 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


was there merely to carry the bags, or whether she 
would know that he had come because Mamma 
would not allow Louisa to come alone. Freddie 
had a most disconcerting way of divining such 
things and laughing at them—as though they were 
Louisa’s fault! More deeply she was wondering 
whether she liked Freddie very much or not at all. 
She had never been able to make up her mind 
about it, which is not really very surprising, since 
she did both. 

The Lea blood ran strong in the veins of both 
girls, half their traditions were the same, and fun¬ 
damentally they were very much alike. But on 
the surface they were very different and the differ¬ 
ence chafed all the more on account of the likeness. 
Yet in many ways Freddie had come to fill the 
place of Noel to Louisa. Once past the grating 
surface, there was no limit to the depth they would 
go with one another. 

Unadmittedly they were envious of each other. 
Freddie brought with her the reputation of being 
brilliantly clever. She was eminently practical and 
she despised all feminine nonsense. She was frank 
to the verge of roughness and believed in calling a 
spade a spade every time. Mr. Lea, opening his 
eyes wide, said that she was “ thoroughly Carroll.” 
As a matter of fact, she was not Carroll at all, but 
the words carried his meaning exactly to Ms fam* 
ily. Mrs. Lea sighed and said: “ We must remem¬ 
ber, Fred, that she has had no polish. We must 

104 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


not be bard on her.” That was one evening after 
Freddie bad announced at dinner that a man has 
thirty feet of intestines, more or less. Louisa 
thought her sadly lacking in refinement, while she 
in turn thought Louisa inane and ignorant to the 
verge of idiocy. At the same time they were pro¬ 
foundly curious about each other. Neither was 
quite the same in the other’s presence as she was 
out of it and neither was quite the same at the end 
of one of Freddie’s visits as she was at the begin¬ 
ning. 

Mr. Lea said once: “ I am sorry it is necessary 
for us to have Frederica here. I do not like her 
influence on Louisa.” 

And Mrs. Lea answered: “I do not see how it 
can be helped, Fred dear. Your only sister’s child. 
And I trust Louisa’s good sense in the long 
run.” 

That was after Louisa had expressed a wish that 
she might follow Freddie’s footsteps to college. 
Her father said, “ Hoity toity, young America! 
Let me hear no more about it.” And as he did hear 
no more about it, her mother felt justified in her 
trust. 

But the truth was that Freddie had showed her 
a set of examination papers, and Louisa had been 
appalled. Facts, facts, facts, and her education 
was all fancies. It was the first time she had ever 
run against a palpable impossibility and it bruised 
her as though it had been a wall. It was the first 

105 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


rift in her belief in the divine ordinance of things 
as they are. The name “ Young America ” she 
treasured in the hidden places where speech does 
not go, and her wish for college sank down out of 
sight into the dark regions where dead hopes stick 
like splinters and prick when you touch them. She 
was more profoundly influenced by Freddie than 
her parents ever imagined. But Freddie W T as not 
without her envies, either. 

The train arrived and Freddie came through the 
gate like a catapult. When she saw Louisa she 
stopped so short that the man behind her ran into 
her and knocked her hat crooked, and behind him, 
a second man tripped over his umbrella and 
carromed into a woman with a baby in her arms, 
setting all her milk bottles jangling. With one arm 
around Louisa’s neck, in the act of kissing her 
Freddie turned, laughed and said: “ Gosh, I’m 
sorry! ” And everybody laughed with her. Then 
she finished kissing Louisa, straightened her hat, 
dropped her bag into the footman’s hand, patted 
Chief’s head and said: “ Well! ” And she looked 
it. She was like a breeze across open spaces blow¬ 
ing into the murky station. Her blue eyes were 
shining and expectant. Her cheeks were like round 
red apples. Her hair curled round her hat brim 
like a too beautiful boy’s. Her hands were un¬ 
gloved, and at the minute rather grimy. There was 
mud on the flat heels of her shoes, and her woollen 
stockings, visible almost to the knees, sagged 

106 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 

around lier ankles because they were not properly 
gartered. 

“ Well! ” she repeated. “ How’s her highness? ” 

Louisa squirmed inwardly at the name but there 
was nothing to do but answer to it. “All right. 
How are you? ” 

“ Fine. You look stale. What have you been 
doing ? 99 

“ Same as usual.” 

“ Lands! I should think you’d be fed up! ” ex¬ 
claimed Freddie, and Louisa never imagined in 
what a rosy light the vision of a ballroom danced 
before her eyes. 

“ What are we going to do this afternoon? ” she 
asked. 

“ Fm going riding with Johnny Rocoft.” Louisa 
put the least little accent on the pronoun, but Fred¬ 
die ignored it. 

“ Great! Oh, gee! Look at the dirt on my shoes. 
I had to run for the train and I thought I stepped 
in a puddle! I only had ten minutes after the 
biology, and I ought to have taken a cut but I 
simply couldn’t because we were dissecting a rab¬ 
bit. You know, Louisa, a rabbit-” 

“ I don’t want to know! ” 

“ Oh, I forgot. You don’t like to look inside 
things. You prefer the pretty surface. Has my 
new suit come? ” 

“ Yes. Mamma had the skirt let down.” 

“ Oh, darn! I don’t want the skirt let down. 

107 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


[What the mischief does Aunt Lea think I want to 
have a skirt flapping around my legs for? I 7 11 have 
it turned up again.” 

“ I suppose you will, if you want to.” 

“ Oh, tell me.” They were in the motor by now 
and Freddie bounced around to face Louisa. “ Did 
Winton Finley propose again yesterday? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Ye gods! He didn’t really! How did he do it 
this time? ” 

“ I was up in the gallery and he was down be¬ 
low. It was nearly dark with one ray of light 
coming through an open pane of the window and 
hitting me. He said, 4 It is the East and Juliet is 
the Sun.’ That was the beginning.” 

“ Gosh! What fun. Tries a different way every 
time—like Balaam and Balak. It was last month, 
wasn’t it, he met you in the street and asked casu¬ 
ally : ‘ Have you decided to marry me yet ’? ” 

“ Two months ago.” 

“ Gosh! I wish somebody loved me like that! ” 

“ He doesn’t love me.” 

“Well, he puts up a pretty good bluff anyway. 
When are you going to say 6 yes ’? ” 

“ Never.” 

“ Oh, yes you are. Uncle Fred wants you to.” 

“ I don’t do everything Papa wants.” 

“ Yes you do.” 

“ Besides, he doesn’t want me to, if it is going 
to make me unhappy.” 


108 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“It won’t make you unhappy. Nothing could. 
Life will simply look a little gray, rather light 
than dark on the whole, and you’ll think that’s 
what it ought to be. Patience is your strong point, 
you know. It isn’t mine. I think life ought to be 
white and shining and dazzling. Dazzling, Louisa, 
so it makes you blink for the glory. Gee! How 
I’m going to love somebody, some day! ” 

“ So am I.” 

“Not the way I mean. You’ll love ’em gray, and 
I’ll love ’em white—and black when I get mad. 
You wouldn’t like my kind of love. It wouldn’t 
be ladylike. It would be like dissecting rab¬ 
bits.” 

Louisa threw her head back and a soft smoulder¬ 
ing fire woke in her eyes which might have made 
Freddie review her estimate if she had seen it. But 
Freddie was looking at the shop windows. 

“ My love won’t be like dissecting rabbits,” said 
Louisa. “ It will be like—like sinking into the sea. 
‘ Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my peo¬ 
ple and thy God, my God.’ ” 

“ Who ? ” demanded Freddie. 

“ I don’t know.” 

“Ye gods! I wish I knew. Gosh, I wish it 
would come soon! ” 

Freddie jumped out of the car and ran up the 
steps into the house. 

Mrs. Lea was waiting in the library to receive 

109 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


her, and it must be admitted that she sighed when 
she heard the front door-bell ring. She wore a 
smile of sweet resignation as she lifted her face to 
be kissed by Freddie. It was the only expression 
her niece had ever seen on her face and it exasper¬ 
ated her excessively. It made her want to be 
shocking. 

“ Good-morning, Freddie dear. Did you have a 
pleasant trip? ” 

“All right, thanks, Aunt Lea.” Freddie made 
a dive and hitched up her stockings. 

Mrs. Lea winced. “ What do you hear from your 
mother, dear?” she asked. “She is such a bad 
correspondent I never feel as though I knew any¬ 
thing about her.” 

“ She's all right, thanks, Aunt Lea.” 

“ And your father? ” Mrs. Lea always hesitated 
to ask for her brother-in-law as though there were 
some indelicacy in mentioning his name. But 
Freddie never seemed to feel in the least embar¬ 
rassed. 

“ Dad’s always all right,” she answered. 

“That’s good, dear.” Mrs. Lea sighed again. 
“ Have you any plans for this holiday? You are 
always so full of initiative.” 

“ I’m going slumming.” 

“Why, the idea, Freddie. I don’t know what 
you want to do that for.” 

“ I think you ought to know your way around 
the city.” 


110 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“But not the slums, dear. You’re too young. 
And it isn’t your city. Even Louisa doesn’t go into 
tlie slums.” 

“ Louisa goes up the Avenue to the Park, and 
down some of the side streets, not too far.” 

“ But, Freddie dear, those are the only parts of 
the city a young lady ought to go.” 

“ I go all over Saco. But then perhaps I’m not 
a lady. Some of the bums are awfully nice.” The 
last two sentences were added out of gratuitous 
deviltry. 

The pained expression on Mrs. Lea’s face deep¬ 
ened. “ Well, Frederica, I suppose you will go if 
you want to,” she said, using the same form that 
Louisa had used about turning up the skirt. It 
had become almost a formula for the expression of 
Lea sentiment concerning Freddie. 

“ I guess I will, Aunt Lea,” answered Freddie. 

“ I’ll ask your Uncle Fred whether he can’t ar¬ 
range to have that nice Miss Dunn, from the Chari¬ 
ties, take you around to some of the nicer places. 
Louisa dear, perhaps with Miss Dunn you might 
like to go, too. Of course I think that sort of thing 
is not for young girls. There is jdenty of time 
when you get older. But you must live in your 
generation, and I am quite sure Miss Dunn would 
not let you see anything you shouldn’t. She is so 
nice. I have had her here to tea two or three times. 
You remember her, don’t you, Louisa? ” 

“ Yes, Mamma.” 


Ill 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I don’t want Miss Dunn to tote me round, Aunt 
Lea. I don’t want to go to the nice places. I want 
to go to the worst places and see all the things I 
shouldn’t.” 

“ Oh, Freddie! ” 

“ It’s all arranged, anyhow. There’s a man I 
met the other day, lives somewhere around here, 
who was telling me all about it, and how unjust 
it is that you should have a big house like this for 
three people and not more than a block or two away 
are some of the most awful tenements. He’s pub¬ 
lishing it all in a little paper.” 

“ Oh, Freddie, the idea! A radical editor, 
probably a Bolshevist! Where did you ever meet 
such a man? ” 

“ Oh, I met him. And he said he’d take me 
around. That’s why I took a cut for Friday.” 

“ Are you going alone with him, Frederica? ” 

“ Louisa can go if she wants to.” 

“ Louisa can do nothing of the kind. And I’m 
not at all sure that I shall not put my foot down 
and forbid your going.” 

“ I am sure,” said Frederica, which, Louisa was 
aware, was most impertinent of her. Mrs. Lea was 
too preoccupied by the truth of it to think of the 
impertinence. 

“ It’s a most terrible responsibility your mother 
has put upon us,” she exclaimed, “ sending an un¬ 
disciplined girl like you to us! A terrible respon¬ 
sibility ! ” 


112 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“No responsibility at all, Aunt Lea. I’m per¬ 
fectly able to look after myself, and if you would 
rather I should stay at a hotel, I will.” 

“ The idea, Freddie! The very idea! You know 
we never could allow that.” 

“Well, then. I suppose you heard the lunch 
bell?” That was the sort of a girl Freddie was, 
or at least the sort of a girl she appeared to her 
uncle and aunt. 

Mrs. Lea sighed a very heavy sigh as she led the 
way into the dining-room. 

Freddie sat down at the table, combed her short 
hair back from her face and fastened it, then looked 
around her with an aspect of polite conversational 
interest. 

“ What about the Pan American? ” she asked. 

“ What about it, dear? ” 

“ I suppose Uncle made millions, didn't he? ” 

“ Your Uncle Fred made millions in the Pan 
American, dear? Not that I know of.” 

“ But he’s counsel for it. He must have.” 

“ I don’t know anything about it, dear. He 
hasn’t mentioned it, and I never bother your uncle 
about business unless he speaks of it himself.” 

“ I suppose he didn’t think it worth mentioning. 
Just a few extra millions, when he has so many,” 
said Freddie. 

“Now, Freddie dear, don’t make that mistake. 
Your uncle is not a rich man, I know he isn’t.” 

“ Isn’t he? ” asked Frederica in such an incredu- 

113 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

lous tone that her aunt turned to Louisa for cor¬ 
roboration. 

“ Have you been brought up to consider your 
father a rich man? ” she asked. 

“ JSTo,” answered Louisa, a little doubtfully be¬ 
cause she had not been brought up to consider the 
matter at all. 

“ Well, you’ve been brought up to act as though 
he was, anyway! ” exclaimed Freddie. 

“ Hoiv? ” demanded Louisa. 

“ Every way. You’re awfully extravagant.” 

“ I’m not. I never overspend my allowance.” 

“ That’s because you couldn’t if you tried, it’s so 
big. But you are extravagant, all right. Just con¬ 
sider.—You ride in the Park. You drive an auto¬ 
mobile. You go to the opera in a box. You have a 
boat to race.” These things rankled w T ith Freder¬ 
ica, who had none of them except as they were lent 
to her. They formed much of the rosy haze in 
which she saw Louisa moving. And they made her 
tongue more tart than nature. 

“ But, Frederica, how silly you are! ” exclaimed 
Louisa, quite pink with indignation. u It isn’t ex¬ 
travagant for me to ride in the Park. It would be 
extravagant not to. I’d have to pay someone to 
exercise Scheherazade. And it isn’t extravagant 
for me to go to the opera in a box. It’s there and 
somebody has got to use it. And I never get more 
than one set of sails for the boat, any year. I’m 
as careful-” 


114 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Oh, my lands! ” interrupted Frederica. 
“ Haven’t you got any sense? ” 

“ What do you-” 

“ Girls, I think we will not discuss your uncle’s 
affairs,” said Mrs. Lea, and then, to change the 
subject completely, she asked: “What are you go¬ 
ing to do this afternoon? ” 

“We’re going riding with Johnny Rocoft,” said 
Freddie, and after that gave her entire attention 
to her meal. It was of quite a different kind from 
what she was accustomed to at college, and she got 
immense enjoyment out of it. 


115 



CHAPTER XII 


The old groom from tlie Riding Club, who was 
wise in his generation, looked worried as he held 
Louisa’s horse for her by the mounting block in 
the Park. 

“You wouldn’t stay inside, Miss?” he asked. 
“ They’re ridin’ to music, and it’ll be nice.” 

Louisa shook her head, and he went on. 

“ The path was soft enough round midday when 
the sun was shinin’ but it’s hardenin’ up now. 
You’ll have to be careful of the ice. And the mare’s 
feelin’ good.” 

“I’ll be careful,” said Louisa, picking up her 
reins. 

He made one last effort. “ There was thirty or 
forty out earlier. But there’s nobody now, only 
Miss Morres and Mr. Finley as haven’t got back 
yet. You’re sure you won’t change your mind, 
Miss?” 

“ Xo. Let her go, please.” 

Scheherazade was off with the arch-backed leap 
that made the homeward bound nursemaids on the 
other side of the railing catch up their charges with 
gapes and gasps. She moved like Pegasus with his 
wings clipped, barely touching the ground with her 
dancing toes, as though more than half she floated 

116 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


in the air. Before Louisa could quiet her, Fred¬ 
die, on a raw-honed hired nag, lumbered by at a 
heavy gallop. The mare, maddened at being 
passed, dashed away under the low part of the 
arched bridge, so that Louisa had to crouch against 
her neck to avoid being hit. 

She frowned as Freddie galloped by a second 
time. But the mare was quieter by now, though 
her breath still came in anxious puffs, through 
wide red nostrils. 

Louisa drew her up alongside of Johnny. 
u Freddie has no sense,” she exclaimed, u starting 
off like that when she knows Scheherazade is fresh! 
I suppose she’s half-way round the reservoir by 
now,—if she hasn’t fallen on the ice and broken 
her neck! ” 

“ Let her go,” said Johnny. “ It’s all off.” 

“ What is? ” 

“ Father told me at lunch he can’t put up the 
capital for me to go into Learning and Phillipse.” 

“ Oh, Johnny, how mean! I think he might! ” 

“ He can’t. He hasn’t got it. He lost a lot in 
this Pan American deal. He sold all his stock in 
that and bought in the syndicate of a little com¬ 
pany, thinking they were going to get the patent. 
I suppose Uncle Fred made a heap.” 

“ I don’t think so. What are you going to do 
now? ” 

“ Go on selling stocks, darn ’em. I hate it.” 

“ I know you do. But anyway, Uncle John will 

117 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


give you more holiday than you could get any other 
way, and that’s some comfort.” 

“ No he w r on’t. He says he’s got to cut down the 
office force to the last possible man. And I can’t 
have any holiday. He says I’ve had nothing but 
holiday up to now.” 

“ Oh, J ohnny! You won’t come to Isle du 
Nord?” 

“ Looks that way.” 

“ I don’t think it’s fair! ” exclaimed Louisa, “ for 
men to have to work the way you all do, while we 
girls have all the fun. We never-” 

“We don’t want our women to work,” inter¬ 
rupted Johnny with an expression of kindly superi¬ 
ority. 

Louisa opened her mouth for a quick retort but 
closed it again without speaking. An education 
which is all fancies makes a girl see some things 
quickly and clearly. For instance, that when a 
man is twenty-two and first feels the tug of the 
harness, expects to stay at his desk all summer 
while the little yachts race across the blue water, 
splashing white foam, wdiile up on the mountains 
the trees sing and the moss is soft underfoot, the 
sun looks dark and amour propre seems about all 
there is left in the world. 

Freddie’s facts admitted no room for such fan¬ 
cies. She had rejoined them by now and she broke 
into the conversation with an exclamation. 
“ Pooh! Much women care whether men want 

118 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


them to work or not. They’ve learned they can do 
it and be independent and they’re jolly well going 
to do it. No more ‘ w T hite man’s burden ’ for us, I 
can tell you.” 

“ You’ll be glad enough to be some man’s burden, 
some day, when life hits you, young lady,” an¬ 
swered Johnny, angrily. “ You-” 

Louisa cut in quickly. 

“ Isle du Nord won’t be like the same place with¬ 
out you—and Noel. Freddie, let me get out¬ 
side.” 

The hired horse was ducking his head heavily 
against a misfit bit, and setting all Scheherazade’s 
nerves on edge so she danced and foamed. As they 
were in the act of changing places, Freddie caught 
sight of two riders coming towards them by the 
long round, just where the path divides to circle 
the reservoir or go beyond it. 

“ There’s Lois! ” she cried, and was off with a 
flap of her reins and a kick of her heels. 

Scheherazade gave a leap in the air and came 
down quivering. 

“ Freddie oughtn’t! ” exclaimed Louisa, indig¬ 
nantly. “ I’m going to let Scheherazade out for a 
minute. I’m tired of holding her in.” Like a flash 
she was off by the short round, with Johnny close 
behind her. 

Scheherazade was wild with excitement. She 
moved in leaping bounds, crouching on her 
haunches and tossing her head against the curb. 

119 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


The path ran fairly straight for a little way along 
the side of the reservoir, then it swung sharply 
round the end of it. Just in that spot there was 
shade most of the day and little frost spikes, like 
miniature trees, rose out of the ground. The mare, 
bounding along, struck them with all four feet 
at once, slipped, half recovered herself, leaped for¬ 
ward, struck them again and went down on her 
head, rolling heavily to her side and pinning Louisa 
under her. 

Quick as lightning she was up again and away 
in the direction she had come. But Louisa lay on 
the ground. 

Perfectly still she lay, all crumpled with her legs 
bent under her. And Johnny, looking at her, saw 
suddenly into his own heart. He was beside her 
in an instant, and his horse, forgotten, galloped 
after the mare. 

“ Louisa! Oh, Louisa! ” He raised her, like a 
fallen leaf, so light, and she drooped against him, 
limp as an empty dress. He shook her, he pressed 
her to him, he kissed her. 

“ Louisa! Oh, my darling Louisa! ” 

Only for a second she lay lifeless, then her con¬ 
sciousness returned. She heard his voice. 
“ Louisa, my darling! ” She felt his lips on her 
face. She opened her eyes and met his.—And she, 
too, saw into her heart. 

With a long sigh she came completely to herself, 
steadying her feet on the ground. “ Johnny! ” 

120 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


With a thud of hoofs the others came galloping 
around the corner with scared faces. 

“ My God, Louisa! Are you hurt? ” Finley was 
down beside her, with his arm around her, draw¬ 
ing her away from Johnny as though he had the 
right. 

She stepped away from them both. “No, Fin 
all right. I was stunned for a minute. Where is 
Scheherazade? ” 

“Darn Scheherazade!” Freddie, too, was off 
her horse, proffering supporting arms. 

“ I’m all right,” repeated Louisa. “ Where is 
Scheherazade? ” 

Was this the same world? There was the light 
of paradise upon it, though it swam a little before 
her eyes and felt wobbly under her feet. She smiled 
like a shadow and the others thought she was being 
brave. 

“ Shall I call a doctor? ” asked Finley. 

“ No, I’m all right. Where is Scheherazade? ” 
It was idiotic to repeat the same sentence over and 
over, but she could not take time from her happi¬ 
ness to think of another. 

“ What happened? ” asked Freddie. 

Louisa roused herself with an effort. “ Sche¬ 
herazade stumbled, and I tried to pull her up and 
she stumbled again, and the next thing I knew 
Johnny was picking me up off the ground.” 

“ Well, you needn’t blush about it,” observed 
Freddie, seeing the color rise in Louisa’s face. “ A 

121 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


tramp would have done as much and probably 
kissed you while he had the chance.” 

Now Louisa blushed in earnest, and Johnny 
turned red as fire. 

“ Silly! ” exclaimed Freddie. “ I got a rise out 
of you that time all right! What made Schehera¬ 
zade stumble? Here’s where she went down. Ice! 
Oh, you booby, you rode straight into the ice. 
Wouldn’t you think she’d have more sense! ” 

“ She seems to have been in a great hurry to 
get away from us,” remarked Lois, who "was still 
in her saddle. “ Here comes a policeman with the 
horses. You’d better call a taxi, Win. Louisa 
oughtn’t to ride.” 

u Yes, I will ride.” Louisa jumped up in panic 
at the thought of shutting up in a taxi all the glory 
and the singing that was in her heart. All out-of- 
doors was not too big to contain it. The brightness 
of the sunset behind the bare, silhouetted trees not 
too splendid to illuminate it. She would ride, 
though her knees still shook and her hands trem¬ 
bled. She wished there was some way to get rid 
of the others, and that she and Johnny could ride 
forever and ever on towards the golden heavens. 
But that was a dream, and the reality was a police¬ 
man asking innumerable questions, and a horse 
with mud on her knees (not broken, thank good¬ 
ness) and a saddle with flattened pommels. She 
left the others to answer the questions, while she 
wiped the mud off Scheherazade’s knees and felt 

122 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


the smooth skin underneath. Then she mounted 
while they weren’t looking so when they turned to 
urge her to take a taxi, the matter was already 
settled. 

Louisa’s car had not yet come back to the Kiding 
Club when they reached there, so Lois offered to 
drive her home. They all five got in, and when 
they reached the house, Freddie asked them in to 
tea. Louisa wanted none of them but Johnny, but 
there was nothing to do except second Freddie’s 
invitation. 

She left them in the hall while she went to find 
her mother. 

“ Mamma! ” she called, bursting into the library 
in a way which was almost like Freddie. 

Mrs. Lea raised her eyes from the tapestry frame 
and smiled down at her from her usual place up in 
the gallery. 

“ Yes, dear, here I am.” 

She reached up her arms as Louisa bent to kiss 
her, holding her for a minute to look into her glow¬ 
ing eyes. 

“ You’ve had a good time, haven’t you, darling? 
But you didn’t take a very long ride.” 

u INTo. There was ice on the path and the horses 
slipped.” 

“ Oh, Louisa! They might have fallen and killed 

vou.” Mrs. Lea’s face turned white at the 
«/ 

thought. 

“ Yes,” admitted Louisa hesitatingly. “ But 

123 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


we’re all home safe and sound,” she added quickly. 
“We met Lois Morres and Winton Finley, and 
Lois brought us home because I hadn’t ordered the 
car for another hour. They’ve all come in to 
tea.” 

“ That’s nice, dear. There’s a new cake. Did 
you say Mr. Finley was riding with Lois? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ They are very ambitious people, the Morreses. 
There is nothing they would like better than for 
Lois to marry Mr. Finley.” 

Louisa laughed, reaching up her hand to stroke 
her mother’s hair, which was soft and white and 
invited stroking. She was sitting at her feet, try¬ 
ing to say words which were unaccountably diffi¬ 
cult to frame considering how delighted she knew 
Mamma would be to hear them. 

“ That’s very like you and Papa, isn’t it? ” she 
said. 

There was nothing in the world Mrs. Lea loved 
like the touch of Louisa’s fingers, but she turned 
her head away angrily. 

“ Why, Louisa, the idea! It’s not like at all. 
The only ambition your father and I have, the only 
ambition there is any occasion for, is your happi¬ 
ness. God has given you everything else.” 

“ But, Mamma, Winton Finley has no connection 
with my happiness.” 

Mrs. Lea bent over her tapestry for a few seconds 
without speaking. She had an enormous number 

124 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


of colored worsteds in work at once, and they re¬ 
quired close attention. 

“ Of course, Louisa dear,” she said at last, 
“ neither your father nor I wish to influence your 
choice in the least. But we are so anxious for 
your happiness. And I place great reliance on your 
father’s judgment. He thinks very highly of Mr. 
Finley. He says it is a great compliment that a 
young man of his ability should care for you. You 
must not forget, dear, that strangers pay thousands 
of dollars for Papa’s judgment, which is the gift 
of God to us.” 

“ I know, Mamma, but-” 

“ You had better go back to your guests, hadn’t 
you, dear? ” 

“ There’s no hurry. Freddie’s there. I— 

Mamma—I-” There was no use. It seemed 

preposterous, almost sacrilegious to try to say it 
now, after all this talk about Winton Finley. 
“Well, I suppose I might as well go back,” she 
ended, rising to her feet. 

Again Mrs. Lea put up her arms and pulled her 
down to kiss her, holding her to look into her eyes. 
“ I do love to see you have a good time, dear. It 
is better than having a good time myself. Wait a 
minute! ” She caught her back as though she had 
seen something in her eyes which had never been 

there before. “ You—if- My little girl would 

tell Mamma if she ever thought she was beginning 
to care for anybody, wouldn’t she? ” 

125 





THE SABLE CLOUD 


U J _ ')') 

“ Louisa! ” called Freddie’s voice from down¬ 
stairs. “ Come on. Tea’s getting spoiled.” 

“ Pour it out yourself,” answered Louisa. 

But Mrs. Lea took her hands from her shoulders. 
“ No, dear. Bun along. We will talk about this 
another time, when we are not hurried. Give me 
one more kiss. There! My little girl must tell 
Mamma everything. That is the way safety lies.” 

“ Why don’t you come down with us, Mamma? ” 

“ No, dear. I should spoil your fun.” 

“ Louisa! ” It was Johnny’s voice this time, at 
the door under the gallery. 

“ Coming! ” she cried and ran around the gallery 
and down the steps and out of the room, while her 
mother, watching, smiled and sighed. Mrs. Lea 
seldom smiled without sighing. 

As a young child on learning feet goes to its 
mother, unthinkingly, unhesitatingly, Louisa went 
to Johnny in the empty hall. 

His arms closed around her. “ You are not hurt, 
truly? ” 

“ Truly. Isn’t this wonderful, Johnny! ” 

“But isn’t it natural? That’s what bowls me 
over, Louisa, that it doesn’t seem strange at all.” 

“ Isn’t it funny that we never realized it be¬ 
fore? ” 

“ I always knew that I liked you better than 
anyone else in the world.” 

“ So did I. But I thought love was different.” 

126 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ And it is?” 

“ Oh, yes, it is! ” 

“ Did you tell Aunt Lizzie? ” 

“ A r o, I will tell them both this evening, 
must go in now. Oh, Johnny, Tm so happy! 7; 


We 


127 


CHAPTER XIII 


Happiness transformed Louisa. It was like a 
cloak of light about her. She sparkled and flashed, 
so that even vivid Lois paled before her. There was 
a lilt in the songs she sang at the piano after tea, 
and a joy in her laughter, which were irresistible. 
They set Freddie dancing about the room like a 
breeched and booted fairy. Winton caught her as 
she whirled past him and they danced together. 
Johnny pushed the sofa out of their way and rolled 
up the rug. Then he and Lois danced. From the 
noise they all made they might have been twenty 
couples instead of two. Mrs. Lea came across the 
hall from the library and stood in the doorway for 
a little while, looking at them with a frown of un¬ 
certainty. But Freddie took the piano just then 
and Louisa danced with Finley. When she saw 
that, all Mrs. Lea’s uncertainties resolved them¬ 
selves. She went away to sit smiling over her 
worsteds, content that Papa would approve. 

But they had changed partners again by the time 
Papa came in, and Louisa was dancing with 
Johnny. Dancing, was it? It was more like float¬ 
ing, dreaming, far off in a hazy paradise. Papa’s 
voice at the door brought her back to earth with 
abruptness. 


128 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I didn’t hear you come in! ” she exclaimed. 

“ I am not surprised. As I came along the street 
I thought someone must have opened a cabaret. 
Close that window, if you please, John.” 

He opened his eyes very wide and in a flash 
Louisa saw the room as he saw it. The delicate 
Savourie rug tossed in the corner as carelessly 
as a bath mat, a marquetry table thrown over 
on its side, and a row of tapestry chairs stand¬ 
ing on their heads on the sofa, with their frail 
gilt legs sticking up in the air like the legs of dead 
pigs. 

The whole party were in their riding habits, and 
Louisa’s was the only skirt among them. Freddie 
had on a black and white check an inch wide, and 
Lois’s breeches were almost tights. 

“ Were we making too much noise? ” asked 
Louisa anxiously. 

Mr. Lea crossed the room and rescued a Sevres 
lady from a precarious perch on top of the mantel 
clock. He smiled his best society smile, which 
Louisa knew had no connection whatever with his 
feelings. 

“ I like to see young people enjoy themselves,” 
he said. “ Only I think perhaps it would have been 
wise to keep the window shut. Well, Frederica.” 
He leaned, and gave his niece a dutiful kiss on her 
cheek. “ How is college getting on ? ” 

“ All right, Uncle Fred, thanks.” 

u As wise as Solomon.” He opened his eyes wide 

129 


THE SABLE CLOTJD 


and laughed. “ Ha, ha. Good-evening, Lois. Glad 
to see you, Finley. Well, John. 77 

“Will you have some tea, Papa? I'll make you 
some fresh. 77 

“ No, no. Don 7 t let me interrupt you. I 7 11 
join your mother. She 7 s in the library, I sup¬ 
pose? 77 

“Yes, she was. I think we won 7 t dance any more, 
Papa. I wish you 7 d stay. 77 

“ No, no. Don 7 t stop on my account. I like to 
see young people enjoy themselves. 77 

He called back from the hall, however, after he 
had left the room: “ Louisa, before you go up-stairs, 
speak to me in the library. 77 

“ Yes, Papa. 77 

“ Gosh! 77 exclaimed Freddie. 

Lois said: “ I guess it’s high time for us to go 
home. Can I give anybody a lift? 77 

No one accepted her invitation, but Finley went 
out of the house with her. She leaned forward to 
speak to him out of the dark car as he stood holding 
the door. 

“ Good-night, Win. Do you like me to call you 
‘Win, 7 or do you think Louisa will mind? 77 

He put one foot on the step and leaned close to 
her. 

“ Do I like it? 77 he repeated. 

“Do you—Win-? Tell me. Did you see 

them? 77 

“ See whom? 77 


130 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 

“You didn’t, then. Johnny kissed her in the 
Park.” 

“ I don’t believe it.” 

She stretched out her hand and patted his cheek. 
“ Poor Win. What a shame to make him mad.” 

He was rather ashamed of having been made 
mad, and he drew back his head with a laugh. 
“ You were joking, Lois.” 

“ Indeed I wasn’t. Why shouldn’t he kiss her? 
She is very attractive. But the point is, she kissed 
him, too.” 

Finley stepped back from the car. “ Good¬ 
night,” he said. 

Lois was invisible in the dark car, but her laugh 
was mocking. “ Go buy her a bunch of flowers, 
Win, to show there is no ill will.” 

Inside the house, Louisa and Freddie and Johnny 
were straightening the furniture. If wishes had 
force without words, Freddie would have gone up¬ 
stairs. But she showed no inclination to go. 

The door of the library opened. 

“ Louisa.” 

“ Yes, Papa.” 

“ Have your guests gone? ” 

“ Johnny is still here.” 

“ Let Frederica entertain him. I want to speak 
to you.” 

“All right, Papa. You won’t be gone when I 
come back, Johnny? ” 

“ I can’t stay. Mother is having dinner company. 

131 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


You’ll tell them, Louisa, and I’ll tell Mother and 
Father. I’ll be around first thing in the morning.” 
They had gone into the hall, and they had for¬ 
gotten all about Freddie. 

“Telephone even before that, Johnny.” 

“ Louisa! ” 

“ Coming, Papa.” She held out her hand to 
Johnny and for a minute they stood so with hands 
clasped, and then by one impulse they stepped for¬ 
ward. His arms closed around her. 

“ My darling! You are sure you are not hurt? ” 

“ I am certain, Johnny.” 

“ Louisa! ” 

“ Yes, Papa! ” 

The door closed behind Johnny and she stood for 
a minute as though dazed, while on the stairs 
Freddie crept upwards with a chuckle that was 
half a gasp. 

“ Louisa! ” 

“ Yes, Papa.” She roused herself with an effort 
and went into the library. 

Mr. Lea was standing before the fireplace with 
his legs apart like the Colossus of Ehodes, rubbing 
his hands together behind his back with a soft 
skinny sound. Mrs. Lea was sitting beside him on 
the edge of a big leather chair, looking very agi¬ 
tated and tense as though she were straining, or 
preparing to strain, her intellect a little beyond its 
capacity. 

“ Has he gone? ” demanded Mr. Lea. 

132 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Yes, Papa.” 

“ Where is Frederica? ” 

“ I think she went up-stairs.” 

“Go and close the gallery door. Lock it. I 
don’t want her coming in that way while I am 
speaking.” 

Louisa went up the steps, round the gallery to 
the door, locked it and came back, while down¬ 
stairs there was absolute silence. She could see 
her father rising and falling on his toes, and her 
mother’s chest swelling in deep sighs. It was all 
very ominous and disturbing. But it could not 
still the singing of her heart. When all this, what¬ 
ever it was, was done, she would tell them.—She 
would tell them! 

She came back and sat down on a little chair be¬ 
side her mother, leaving the other armchair for her 
father in case he should feel like occupying it. 

Mr. Lea waited till she was settled, and after 
that, long enough to allow the pause to fill the 
room with anxiety before he spoke. 

“ Now! ” he said, and Mi's. Lea jumped. He 
frowned as though she were interrupting. 

“I have not yet spoken to your mother about 
this, Louisa,” he continued, turning towards her, 
“because I wish you to hear what I have to say. 
I have had a most painful day.” 

Instantly Mrs. Lea was on her feet. “ Fred! I 
knew it. You’ve got a headache. I can see it in 
your eyes. You had much better lie down, dear. 

133 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


You can tell us after you have rested. Let me 
cover you over.” 

“ Sit down, Lizzie, and listen to me.” 

Bather hurriedly, rather like dropping, she sat 
down. 

“ You had much better wait till you have had 
your tea, Fred,” she murmured. “ You w T ill feel 
quite picked up then.” 

“ I will talk while I drink my tea. Who’s that? 
Come in! ” 

It was Lauchlin with the tray. 

“ Put it down anywhere. Anywhere! Be sure 
you shut the door tight behind you.” 

At a signal from her mother, Louisa got up and 
poured the tea, while Mr. Lea began again. 

“ Now! I am sorry to bring business into the 
home. In my opinion the two should be kept sepa¬ 
rate. You remember, Lizzie, when we married I 
said we would never talk business? When I shut 
the door of my home I shut it on everything that 
is outside.” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

“Well! Now! This rice patent purchase.—Do 
you know anything about it? ” 

“Nothing, dear,” said Mrs. Lea. But Louisa 
said r “A little.” 

“How?” asked her father, swinging around to¬ 
wards her again. 

“ The papers are full of it, and everybody I have 
seen, Freddie and Johnny and Mr. Finley and all, 

131 


I 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

0 

say you must have made a great deal of money out 
of it.” 

“ I have not.” He shook his head violently, and 
as he puffed out his cheeks at the same time, his 
jowls went flap, flap, quite audibly to Louisa’s acute 
young ears. “ I shall not go into details,” he con¬ 
tinued. “ I do not consider it necessary. All I 
shall say is this. It would not have been honorable 
for me to make money out of it, except my legiti¬ 
mate fee, and I did not make any. That is not the 
w T ay I do business.” 

Mr. Lea paused, and Mrs. Lea opened her mouth 
with a little gulp as though she felt she ought to 
say something but didn’t know just what. “ Why, 
the idea, Fred. Of course that’s the way you do 
business. Who ever suggested it wasn’t? ” 

“ John Rocoft suggested it.” Mr. Lea brought 
his fist down in his open palm with a bang. “ He 
came into my office this morning and insulted me.” 

“ Papa! ” A new feeling swept over Louisa, a 
feeling she had never felt before in her twenty 
years, as though something strange were happening 
in her chest. 

Mrs. Lea gasped. u Why, the idea, Fred! What 
did he say? ” 

“ I don’t care to repeat what he said. I do not 
consider it necessary. The fact is enough. Louisa, 
I do not wish to see young John in this house again. 
That is all I have to say to you. If it is time for 
you to dress for dinner, you may go.” 

135 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ But Papa! Uncle John! I don’t understand. 
How could he insult you? He can’t have meant 
it!” 

“ He meant it.” Mr. Lea turned round to give 
the fire a poke with his heel, turning up his toe. 
“And Mr. Kocoft is no relation to you. Don’t call 
him uncle any more.” 

“But, Papa! You must have misunderstood 
him.” 

Mr. Lea whirled around on her. “ Is there any 
misunderstanding this, young lady? He said you 
were out to marry money.” 

“ I? ” repeated Louisa, looking at him with open 
mouth. 

“ You.” He leaned his hands on the back of his 
wife’s chair, looking over the top of her head at his 
daughter. 

“ But what did he mean? Why should I want to 
marry money? You must tell me, Papa.” 

“ Very well, I will tell you. He said if I let op¬ 
portunities like this pass, dishonorable opportu¬ 
nities which I had no right to take, mind you, that 
you,” he tapped the syllables out with his fingers on 
the chair and his wife shivered as though each tap 
were on her nerves, “that you,” he repeated, 
“ would be a public charge. I said you would never 
be a charge on him. He replied that you were out 
to marry money, and I said you would never marry 
into his family. There! you asked for it. You 
got it.” 


136 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Louisa collapsed in her chair, sobbing with her 
head on her arm. 

Mrs. Lea looked from her to her father and 
blinked her eyes. “ The idea, Fred! The very idea 
of John Rocoft daring to speak to you like that! I 
don’t wonder Louisa is shocked. And then for you 
to come home and find his son in your house. That 
shall never happen again; never! never! But you 
must remember to be civil to him, if you meet him 
anywhere, Louisa. War is never declared in polite 
society. Now, Fred dear, you really must go lie 
down. Please do. You will feel so much better. 
Come, Louisa. Go up-stairs and let your father be 
quiet. He has had a hard day.” 

Louisa raised her face, tear-streaked and red, all 
the beauty gone out of it. She jumped to her feet 
and caught her father by the lapel of his coat. 

“ But Papa, I don’t understand. I don’t really. 
What did he mean by saying I would be a public 
charge? ” 

Mr. Lea loosened her hands from his coat, and 
held them. “He meant that I prefer to remain 
poor, honorably, than to become rich dishonorably. 
He has no such preference.” 

“ But Fred, we’re not poor,” objected Mrs. 
Lea. 

“ I am speaking figuratively, Lizzie.” He turned 
to give the fire a kick very much as though he 
wished it were a living thing. 

Mrs. Lea looked at Louisa pleadingly and framed 

137 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


the word “ go ” with her lips silently. But Louisa 
paid no attention. 

“ Papa. I can’t drop Johnny. I won’t! I- 

Oh, Mamma—I—I love Johnny. Mamma I ” 

Thus appealed to, Mrs. Lea gasped again as 
though she felt sure she was going to say the 
wrong thing. “ Louisa, dear! Don’t use that word! ” 
she exclaimed. u Love is for a husband, darling. 
I know my little girl is fond of Johnny. So are 
Mamma and Papa, and they are very sorry this has 
happened. But my little girl must trust Mamma 
and Papa, and if Papa says that Johnny is not to 
come to this house, he mustn’t. Why, Louisa! ” 
she brightened, feeling that at last she was speak¬ 
ing from inspiration, “ it wouldn’t be standing by 
Papa, and my little girl wouldn’t want to be dis 
loyal to Papa. I know that.” 

“ But I-” 

“ That’s enough, Louisa. I want a nap before 
dinner. Where is the shawl to put over me, 
Lizzie? ” 

“ Here.” Mrs. Lea jumped up and went with 
little hurrying steps across the room to get it. 
But Louisa, instead of going out of the room, sat 
down again. 

“ Papa—I-” 

He frowned at her, and Mrs. Lea laid her hand 
on her arm. 

“ Louisa dear! You must not bother Papa when 
he comes home tired from a hard day’s work. 

138 





THE SABLE CLOUD 


Come! Go up-stairs, or into tlie parlor—anywhere. 
But leave your Papa alone. You can talk another 
time.” 

Louisa went. She had hardly reached her room 
before Freddie burst into the door, her face alight 
with excitement and amusement. 

“ Say, Louisa. I saw you! ” 

“ You saw me what? ” 

“ I saw you kiss Johnny in the hall! ” 

“ Well. Didn’t you ever kiss anybody? ” 

“ I, yes. But you! ” 

Louisa turned on her fiercely. “ I’m just like 
anybody else. I wish you’d stop talking as though 
I was a doll. Just because I’ve been brought up to 
act like one, I am not one inside. I’m not! I’m 
not! I’m not! Get out of here! ” 

Freddie promptly sat down. 

“ Gosh, Louisa. You’re as good as a novel. I 
wonder which one of them you will end by marry¬ 
ing.” 

“ Go away! ” exclaimed Louisa, going and lean¬ 
ing her face against the window-pane, which was 
cool and soothing. 

“ Gosh! ” repeated Freddie. And then after a 
few minutes she got up and came across the room. 
“ Louisa,” she said, laying her hand on her shoulder. 
“ Oh, Louisa! ” 

And Louisa, turning, put her head on her shoul¬ 
der and cried. 

But she said nothing at all. 

139 


CHAPTER XIV 


“ Coty, are you here? ” Lois stopped at the door 
of the library and looked in. 

“ Yes, Lois.” Miss Cotenet, deep among the 
cushions on the sofa with a book in her hand, 
looked as happy as a purring cat. “Where have 
you been all afternoon? ” she asked. 

“ I went for a ride with Winton Finley. We 
met Louisa Lea and Freddie Carroll and Johnny 
Rocoft riding together and Louisa’s horse fell on 
her.” 

“ Louisa’s horse! How dreadful! ” 

“ She wasn’t hurt, and it was her own fault. 
She cantered into a patch of ice. I took them all 
down to her house and we stayed to tea and danced 
afterwards. Rather a rough-house. And Mr. Lea 
came in and was as mad as hops. He’s like a 
bear, that man. He’s so cross. Louisa’s scared to 
death of him.” 

Lois leaned back against the mantel and yawned, 
looking down with an expression which her gov¬ 
erness found suggestive. 

“ I’ve got your place, haven’t I? ” she said, scram¬ 
bling to her feet. 

Lois dropped into it at once, stretching her 
booted legs luxuriously towards the fire. “ Thank 

140 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


you, Coty. It is uncomfortable, isn’t it?—But of 
course one gets tired sitting in one seat too long.” 

“ One does,” agreed Miss Cotenet, looking round 
for tbe next most comfortable seat. 

u Before you sit down you might give me an 
ash tray,” said Lois. And Miss Cotenet, who had 
chosen her chair and was dropping into it, straight¬ 
ened her knees again and crossed the room to get 
it for her. 

“ Thanks so much. I know you hate seeing ashes 
thrown all over the place. I don’t mind, myself. 
What have you been reading, Coty? ” She picked 
up the book which Miss Cotenet had dropped on the 
sofa. “ ‘ Scarlet Petals.’ Is it good? ” she asked 
with a yawn. 

“ It’s a story of adventure. The girl-” 

“ Don’t tell me. I feel just like reading a story 
of adventure. It does you good to know that other 
people’s lives can be more complicated than 
yours is. Is there plenty of blood and thunder in 
it?” 

u Yes. The hero-” 

“ Coty! Stop! ” 

“ Oh, I’m sorry. Of course I need not tell you, 
Lois, that if there is any complication in your life 
which you feel you would like to talk over-” 

“ Ho, you needn’t tell me. I tell you what I wish 
you would do—help me off with these boots. I’ve 
been dancing in them and they feel so hot.” 

Miss Cotenet came and knelt on the floor in front 

141 





TEE SABLE CLOUD 


of her and pulled off the muddy boots, dusting her 
hands as she rose again. 

“ That feels good/ 7 sighed Lois, cuddling deeper 
into the cushions. She lay on her back, staring 
at the ceiling and smoking, forgetting the ash 
tray. 

“What have you been doing with yourself all 
afternoon? 77 she asked after a few minutes. 

“ I had some shopping to do after lunch/ 7 an¬ 
swered Miss Cotenet. “And I- 77 

“ You got the buttons I wanted, I suppose. 77 

“ Yes, I did get some buttons, Lois. But they 
don’t match exactly. I tried several places 
and- 77 

“ That little shop on Seventh Avenue, I told you 
I think has them. Did you try there? 77 

“No, I didn’t. It was so far out of my way. 77 

“Well, to-morrow will do. After you finished 
your shopping you came home and read ‘ Scarlet 
Petals 7 ? 77 

“ Indeed I didn’t. I didn’t begin to read till 
after five o’clock. After I got your buttons I came 
home to see how the new maid was getting on, and 
then I went for a little walk in the Park, and-” 

“ You took Flick along, I hope. I’d rather he 
went with you than the other servants. 77 

Miss Cotenet winced. “ Yes, I did take Flick. 
But he didn’t behave very well. He does fight so. 
I think you encourage him, Lois --” 

“ Of course I encourage him. I like a dog with 

142 






THE SABLE CLOUD 

spunk. Then you came home and read 6 Scarlet 
Petals ’ ? ” 

“ Yes. I was tired and I thought-” 

“ You thought you would have a nice long read 
all by yourself, and I came along and spoiled it all.” 

“ Now, Lois! Please don’t talk like that. I 
don’t know what has come over you lately. If I 
have ever for one minute made you feel that you 
spoiled anything, I have not only given you a false 
impression, but failed in my trust.” 

“ Not at all, Coty. Daddy’s very much pleased 
with you.” She made the shortest of pauses after 
the word “ Daddy ” to give it emphasis, the way a 
semi-quaver rest accents a note in music. “ But it 
is nice to be by oneself sometimes.” She yawned 
again. “ I remember a sermon you once took me 
to hear. Dr. Golden, I think, at St. Clement’s. 
Did you ever suppose I’d remember a sermon, 
Coty? ” She hitched herself still flatter on her 
back, with her knees in the air. 

Miss Cotenet looked at her disapprovingly. “ To 
tell the truth, I didn’t suppose you listened to 
them,” she admitted. 

“ I listened to this one,” said Lois. “ He said 
our souls grow in solitude. That everybody ought 
to be alone at least an hour every day. He said 
the crowding and cramping in tenements and 
apartments is the worst tragedy of city life, because 
you can never be for one minute alone. You can’t 
even be alone outdoors in the city. He said it was 

143 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


warping our souls, and if we didn’t get back to 
bouses and more space we would degenerate into 
chattering monkeys again, dashing around in a 
pack and jabbering continually without saying 
anything, or anybody listening to anybody else. 
The only difference would be that we would have 
no tails so we couldn’t hang from the branches in 
the way which seems to give monkeys so much in¬ 
nocent enjoyment. You needn’t look so shocked, 
Coty. He did say it. That’s why I remember it. 
I wondered what he would look like, hanging by 
his tail with his surplice falling over his head.’* 
Lois waved her feet in the air by way of illustra¬ 
tion, getting almost up on her head but not quite. 
She dropped down again with a bounce. 
“ Wouldn’t he look funny, Coty? ” 

Miss Cotenet frowned. “ 1 hope you don’t be¬ 
have like this in public, Lois. People would 
say-” 

“ Blood will out? ” suggested Lois. “ They say 
it anyhow, so I do exactly as I please. It doesn’t 
matter, you know, what I am. All that matters is 
what I have.” 

“ Come, Lois. I won’t allow you to talk like 
that.” Miss Cotenet assumed her very best peda¬ 
gogic manner. “ Stop it this minute,” she ordered. 

Lois took a long last puff and threw away her 
cigarette. “ I’m sure I’m perfectly willing to 
stop,” she said. “We are rather like monkeys, 
aren’t we, sitting here talking when we haven’t got 

144 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


anything to talk about.” She opened “Scarlet 
Petals ” with a settled expression. 

Some pity might really be spent on poor Coty’s 
position. Things had changed so since Lois grew 
up. She tried bravely to retain her dignified foot¬ 
ing on the old ground, fearing that on any other 
ground she might very well find she had no footing 
at all. 

“ I am very much pleased that you should have 
remembered Dr. Golden’s sermon, Lois. You have 
an excellent memory, and when all is said and 
done, there is nothing in the world so valuable as 
memory. Unless we have that, everything is 
wasted. There is no use in reading, in seeing, 
in hearing, in anything unless we remember 
what-” 

“ And there is no use remembering unless you 
think about what you remember,” interrupted 
Lois, without raising her head from the book. 
“ And you can’t think unless you are alone. So 
there we are back at our first premise—that soli¬ 
tude is the most blessed thing in the world. At 
this moment I agree absolutely with Dr. Golden.” 
She yawned once more, stretching her arms over 
her head and letting the pages of the book flap as 
she held it up by one cover. 

Miss Cotenet frowned, bit her lip and rose. “ I 
have some letters to write before dinner,” she said. 
“ I can’t sit here chatting with you all afternoon, 
chatterbox.” 


145 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Like monkeys,” said Lois, hitching herself into 
a sitting position and finding her place again in 
“ Scarlet Petals ” towards which Miss Cotenet was 
casting longing glances. “ I guess I’ll stay here 
and read a bit. Just hand me the cigarettes before 
you go, there’s a good Coty. This is six this after¬ 
noon. Only three more than the limit you set.— 
That’s because I’ve been down at the Leas’ and 
Mr. L. won’t allow cigarettes in the house. Lands, 
I don’t see how Louisa stands her parents. I’d go 
mad or bad or something if they were mine. Oh, 
by the way, Coty. When I get married, promise 
me you and Miss Letitia will take a little 
house somewhere. I should hate to think of you 
pinched into an apartment getting cramps of the 
soul.” 

Miss Cotenet continued her way towards the hall. 

“ Come back here, Coty, and promise me. 
You’d feel it twice as much, you know, after living 
in a big house like this.—Or do you think you’ll 
go on living here? ” 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Lois!” exclaimed Miss 
Cotenet, and her pupil’s laugh, gay and young and 
hard, followed her up the stairs to her room. 

But as soon as Miss Cotenet’s door shut, Lois 
stopped laughing. She threw the book down and 
bit so hard on her cigarette that the tobacco 
squeezed out of the end into her mouth. 

She was angry, furiously angry, with the impo¬ 
tent anger of a creature caught in a trap. She was 

146 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


in the mood to strike blindly and hurt where she 
could, in revenge for the hurt in herself. 

Everybody in the world, however much they may 
criticize themselves to themselves, and this Lois 
never did very much, pride themselves in the deep 
regions between consciousness and subconscious¬ 
ness on some one quality which they feel they really 
do possess. Lois prided herself on what she 
thought of as her “ poise.” She might more cor¬ 
rectly have termed it “ cynicism.” But she was 
not a student of words, and she liked the sound of 
“ poise.” She considered that it had a fine mean¬ 
ing. It meant that you looked at things without 
prejudice, that you were always right, always knew 
exactly what you were doing and had yourself com¬ 
pletely under control. It gave you power over 
other people. It taught you that love is like cham¬ 
pagne, very delicious, very desirable, meant for 
your enjoyment. But not to be taken too seriously. 
A beverage for parties rather than for home con¬ 
sumption. 

Love had had nothing whatever to do with her 
decision that she wished to marry Winton Finley. 
She might flirt with considerable, though varying, 
enjoyment with all her beaux, and take kisses casu¬ 
ally, like the fizz on the champagne, but she used 
the powers of discrimination and calculation of 
which she was so proud in choosing a husband. 
For some time she had hesitated between Finley 

and the Englishman. “ Lois, Countess of-” 

147 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


There was a glamor about it, surely, but distance 
tarnished it. After all, half the fun is to be queen 
on your own duck pond. And the Englishman had 
no go-ahead. There was no promise of a future in 
him. Nobody who did not know his title would 
ever know his name. Winton Finley, on the other 
hand, was all future promise. And the promise 
was already beginning to be realized. Many peo¬ 
ple who did not know his coloring were familiar 
with the cast of his features. There was no end 
to the distance he might go. Also, he belonged in¬ 
side that fastness which her whole life had been 
developed to storm. He was handsome, too, and, 
for what that was worth, he had great personal 
attraction. Lois’s miscalculation came from not 
setting its worth high enough. 

She counted it as an advantage, not a danger. 
She planned to intoxicate him with a bit of her 
fizzy champagne and keep sober herself. But she 
was hoisted by her own petard, caught in her own 
trap. Where she meant his blood to boil, hers had 
grown hot. Where she meant to sweep him off his 
feet, she had been carried off her own, while he 
remained cool and kept his footing. 

She twisted her feet together in a rage. 

She wished Louisa had been killed that after¬ 
noon. She wished she had not told Winton about 
her kissing Johnny. She wished she had not worn 
her heart on her sleeve so openly—she wished— 
everything had gone differently. She turned 

148 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

her head impatiently to answer a knock at the 
door. 

“ Come in! ” 

The servant brought her a box from the florist. 
“ Mr. Finley left this, Miss,” he said. She wanted 
to grab it, tear the paper from it like a dog tearing 
meat from a bone. But she forced herself back to 
her “ poise.” 

“ Put a log on the fire,” she ordered, and held 
the box on her knee till the servant had done it and 
gone. Then she opened it slowly, untying the 
string and rolling it up, taking off the paper and 
folding it. But when she lifted out a bunch of 
heavy-scented gardenias and read the card: “To 
my kind adviser, with deep gratitude. I have 
bought the pup and sent Louisa the flowers,” her 
poise went crash. 

She threw herself down on the sofa, her face 
crushing the flowers, her tears blackening their 
waxy w T hiteness, the bruised scent of them rising 
like a dazing incense around her. 

“ Lo! My girl Lo! ” 

Mr. Morres came across the room from the door 
in three strides and stood looking down at her in 
utter consternation. 

“ What’s the matter, Lo? ” he asked, dropping 
down on the sofa beside her, and trying gently to 
raise her head and pull the wrecked flowers away. 
“What is it, my girl?” He patted her shoulder 

gently. “ Tell your old Daddy.” 

149 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Everything,” murmured Lois, cutting the word 
in two with a sob. 

“Everything! Nothing! Was there ever any¬ 
thing that was anything when I got through with 
it?” 

“ No, but-” 

“ No ‘ buts ’; that’s my motto.” 

“ You can’t help. Nobody can.” 

“ That’s a rare kind of trouble, Lo.” He tried 
again to raise her, but when she pulled away he let 
her alone. He put a toothpick in his mouth and 
chewed meditatively. 

“ Well,” he said after a while, “ if you’ve got 
nothing to tell me, I’ve got something to tell you. 
I did a mighty fine piece of business for your young 
man to-day.” 

Lois’s shoulders wriggled convulsively, as she 
buried her face deeper in the flowers. Her father, 
watching her over the top of his glasses, warned: 
“ You’ll be sneezing your head off in a minute, 
sticking your nose in those smelly things. I saw 
Finley and asked him if he intended to use the 
dope I dropped about Silver Brights, because wind 
of the business was rising and soon there’d be a 
hurricane blowing.” 

“ Was it true? ” asked Lois, rolling over on her 
back to look at him. 

“ Sure it was true,” he answered, with mild re¬ 
sentment. “You don’t suppose I’d play monkey 
tricks on your young man, do you, Lo? You ought 

150 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


to know your old Daddy better than that, seems 
to me.” He put out his hand and took hers, 
squeezed it and held it till she drew it away to 
search for a handkerchief in her pocket. 

“ What did he say? ” she asked. 

“ Said he would as soon as he could raise the 
money, might be several days. So I said I’d put by 
a block of the stock and hold it for him at present 
prices. That’s taking dollars straight out of my 
pocket and putting them into his.” 

He looked at her hopefully as though feeling he 
had earned some thanks, but as none were forth¬ 
coming, he went on: 

“ Guess he thinks I’ve got an axe to grind. Be¬ 
gan at once telling me how important the next elec¬ 
tion was going to be, and what a vital matter it is 
that all the ‘ respectable element ’ should unite be¬ 
hind a good administration. That’s himself, of 
course.” 

“ Well, it is, isn’t it? ” asked Lois, getting up 
and combing her hair before the mirror over the 
fireplace. 

“ Now look here, Lo. I don’t want you making 
any mistake about this. If you love him that’s all 
there is to it. I shan’t contradict you if you tell 
me he’s the angel Gabriel come down from heaven. 
But if you’re choosing him on merit, he’s no better 
than anybody else. I didn’t like his attitude to¬ 
day. I don’t say it wasn’t natural. But there 
was nothing of the saint in it. I—I wish you 

151 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

felt like waiting till you’re in love with, someone, 
Lo.” 

“ Maybe I am in love with him. Anyway, my 
mind is made up.” Lois, wiped as to eyes, 
smoothed as to hair, with her long breeched and 
stockinged legs crossed and swinging, and a ciga¬ 
rette hanging from the corner of her mouth, was 
quite master of herself again. She turned the 
mangled gardenias over in her hands, searching 
for one undamaged flower among them. 

“Are you sure about Louisa Lea?” asked her 
father. 

“ Sure.” 

“ Louisa’s a nice little girl, makes you think of a 
daguerreotype. But she can’t hold a candle to you, 
Lo.” 

Lois shrugged her shoulders. “ That depends 
how you look at things.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ You know well enough, Daddy.” 

Mr. Morres considered a while before speaking. 
He spat out the old toothpick and took a new one, 
then he put his feet on the sofa in the corner which 
Lois had deserted. 

“ That isn’t worth much nowadays,” he said 
thoughtfully. 

Lois jerked a flower from the bunch and ex¬ 
amined it critically. “Do you think that’s good 
enough to wear? ” she inquired. 

“ I guess so.” He did not look at it. “ Say, Lo. 

152 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


I don’t like this cold-blooded way of getting mar¬ 
ried. How do you know you’re going to get along 
and be happy? Your mother-” 

“More likely to be happy that way than any 
other,” interrupted Lois. “ You’re safe from dis¬ 
appointment, anyway, and if it doesn’t work you 
can always get a divorce.” 

“ Now, Lo! I don’t want you marrying with 
that idea. I don’t like it. No I don’t! ” 

Lois got up with a yawn and threw the broken 
flowers into the fireplace. 

“ Lois! ” exclaimed her father angrily. 

But Lois, finishing her yawn, went “ Hu, hu—I 
guess it’s time to dress for dinner.” 

He called her back from the door. 

“ You didn’t kiss me when I came in, Lo.” He 
looked at her searchingly as she leaned over him. 
“ Who sent you those flowers? ” he asked. 

“Winton Finley.” 

“ Beastly smelly things. I guess I’ve got time 
for a nap before dinner. 

But when she had gone he did not lie down. He 
leaned over and rescued one of the flowers from 
the burning as though he hoped to find wisdom 
concealed in it. Then he looked at the sofa where 
Lois had been lying, and saw Finley’s card. 

“ To my fair adviser. I have bought the pup and 
sent the flowers to Louisa.” 

He read it two or three times over and put it 
back where he had found it. Then he sat down 

153 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward with his 
hands clasped and his elbows on his knees, staring 
at the fire. Finally he took a note-book from his 
pocket and wrote in it among to-morrow’s engage¬ 
ments : 

“ See John Rocoft.” 

He rose at once and rang the bell. “ Ask Miss 
Cotenet if she will speak to me/’ he said to the 
servant who answered it, but then abruptly 
changed his mind again. “ !No, never mind. That’s 
all.” 


154 


CHAPTER XV 


That night two letters crossed each other in the 
mail. One was to Louisa and the other from her. 

She found the former on the breakfast table in 
the morning. 

“ Who is it from, dear? ” asked her mother. 
And Louisa answered, “ I don’t know,” blushing 
furiously as she said it because it was not true. 

But her mother was too much preoccupied to 
notice. Mr. Lea was in bed with a headache and 
her world had stopped revolving. She sat with a 
little frown between her eyes, eating very little and 
very hurriedly, and glancing every few minutes at 
the ceiling as though she might hear him moving, 
which was not possible because he was at the other 
end of the house. When Freddie came in like a 
breeze of wind, with a cheery “ Good-morning ” 
and a whoop at the sight of pancakes, she said, 
“ Hush-sh,” and in a whisper: “ Be careful, dear, 
don’t disturb your uncle.” 

u Is he sick? ” asked Freddie, dropping her voice. 

Mrs. Lea sighed. “ He had a very hard day yes¬ 
terday, dear. That is the worst of business. It 
seems to be so very difficult for a gentleman to re¬ 
tain his standards—I am not referring to your 
uncle, of course, Frederica.” 

155 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u I didn’t suppose you were. I am sorry lie’s 
sick.” 

“ He had a bad night. I must go back to him.” 
She started to rise but Louisa jumped up and put 
her hands on her shoulders. 

“ You must eat something, Mamma. You have 
been up all night.” 

“ Not really all night, dear. And your father 
might want me.” 

“ I’ll go see,” said Louisa. 

Up-stairs she found her father’s room dark¬ 
ened. 

“ Who is there? ” he asked as she came in. 

“ It’s Louisa.” 

“ W T here’s your mother? ” 

“ Eating breakfast.” 

“ Isn’t she through yet? ” 

“ Not yet, Papa. Is there anything I can do for 
you? ” 

“ No. Ask her to come here as soon as she is 
through. And, Louisa—don’t forget what I told 
you. Don’t have Johnny Rocoft at the house 
again.” 

“ Rut, Papa-” 

u I don’t want to talk now; let me alone.” 

She went out of the room. When she was half¬ 
way down-stairs he called her back again. 

“ Send me up a cup of coffee.” 

“ All right, Papa. I will.” 

As she was going into the dining-room door one 

156 



THE SABLE CLOUD 

of the maids came after her, quite breathless with 
hurry. 

“Miss Louisa! Miss Louisa! Your father is 
calling you.” 

So she went up again. 

“ Til have tea instead of coffee, Louisa. Where’s 
your mother? ” 

“ Having breakfast.” 

“ What is taking her so long? ” 

“ She’s only been fifteen minutes, Papa.” 

“ Is that all, are you sure? Well, I w r ant my 
tea. I can’t wait any longer. If she can’t bring 
it, you’ll have to send it by someone else.” 

“ I wish Mamma could get a nap this morning, 
Papa. She didn’t sleep much last night.” 

“A nap? In the morning? Why didn’t she 
sleep? ” 

“ Wasn’t she up with you? ” 

“ Only once or twice. Go and see if she isn’t 
through breakfast.” Again as the door closed he 
called her, “ Louisa,” and again she came back. 

“ Don’t forget what I said. Don’t have John Ro- 
coft here. If he comes I’ll have Lauchlin turn him 
out.” 

“ But, Papa-” 

“ Can’t you let me be quiet for an instant, 
Louisa! Where’s the tea I asked you to get me? ” 

“ I’ll go see about it.” 

On the stairs she met her mother coming up. 

“Well, dear? Is he all right?” asked Mrs. Lea 

157 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


anxiously, stopping a minute to pull her daughter 
down and kiss her. 

“ He wants some tea.” 

“ Oh, dear. I think he’d he better without any¬ 
thing.” 

“ Shall I order it, then, or not? ” 

“ Well—I suppose you’ll have to. Ho you think 
I ought to send for the doctor? ” 

“ No, I don’t think so. Mamma- About 

Johnny.” 

“ Don’t bother me now, Louisa! I have enough 
on my mind with your father’s illness. I should 
think you would not want to have anything to do 
with people who make your father sick. I really 
should! ” 

“ Lizzie! ” called Mr. Lea’s voice from up-stairs. 

“ Yes, dear, I’m coming,” she answered hur¬ 
riedly. 

“Where’s the tea?” he demanded. 

“Louisa is ordering it.” She leaned over the 
banisters. “ Don’t forget the tea, dear. Tell them 
to make it right away. Right away. You under¬ 
stand? ” 

“ Yes, Mamma.” 

“ And, Louisa,—Louisa! ” 

“Yes, Mamma.” 

“Tell them to be sure the water is boiling. I 
don’t want them to make the tea unless the water 
is at full boil. You understand? ” 

“All right. Lauchlin—you heard?” 

158 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Yes, Miss.” 

She went back to a cold breakfast. Freddie, who 
had already finished and was reading the paper 
among the mottled shadows of the tin ivy, came 
back and rested her elbows on the table. 

“ Is Uncle so awfully sick? ” she asked. 

“ He has these headaches when things worry 
him,” answered Louisa, who did not, for some rea¬ 
son, like the tone of voice in which the question 
was asked. 

“ Only a headache! ” Freddie raised her eye¬ 
brows. “ My father’d have to be pretty well 
dying for the house to be turned upside down like 
this.” 

Louisa frowned slightly. Freddie said things 
like that once in a while on account of that un¬ 
fortunate mesalliance Aunt Carroll had made. 
Louisa felt, as her mother did, that there was a 
slight indelicacy involved in Freddie’s mentioning 
her father in their house. So she said nothing. 

“ I suppose he’s wishing he’d bought some of that 
Pan American stock,” continued Freddie. “ I see 
it’s gone up twenty points.” 

“ Has it? ” Louisa had no idea whether twenty 
points was much or little. 

She glanced at the paper lying open on the floor 
where Freddie had tossed it. 

“ Lauchlin, pick up the paper, please, and 
straighten it out before Mr. Lea wants it.” 

At that moment her mother’s voice called her 

159 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


from up-stairs. “ Louisa! Louisa! ” And she left 
her boiled egg open in the glass. 

“ Where’s the tea? ” asked Mrs. Lea. 

Louisa looked at Lauchlin. “ Isn’t it ready 
yet? ” 

“Yes, Miss. Here it is.” A parlor maid ap¬ 
peared with the tray. 

“ Bring it yourself, Louisa,” called her mother, 
looking over the banisters. “ Papa wants to speak 
to you, dear.” 

“ All right.” 

“ Is that you, Louisa? ” he asked, as she came 
into the room. 

“ Yes, Papa.” 

“ Pull up the shade a little. Not as much as 
that. The light hurts my eyes. A little more. 
What time is it? Look at my watch. Here, under 
the pillow. Don’t disturb things. Two lumps, 
Lizzie, and more cream. You know I like 
cream.” 

“ But to-day, Fred, I thought, perhaps-” 

“ All right, then, take it away. I won’t have any 
if I can’t have it as I like.” 

“ All right, dear. I’ll put in just as much as you 
want.” Mrs. Lea’s voice sounded quite frightened. 

“Is that all you wanted of me, Papa?” asked 
Louisa. “ I haven’t finished breakfast yet.” 

“ No, there was something else. You are always 
in such a hurry. You never can spare me a minute. 
You understand about Johnny Kocoft. I don’t 

160 



THE SABLE CLOUD 

wish any more intercourse between that family and 
mine.” 

u Except, of course, dear, as you may meet some 
of them at other people’s houses,” Mrs. Lea ex¬ 
plained. “ Papa doesn’t mean that you must ever 
be rude to anybody when you are guests of one 
hostess.” 

“ But, Papa-” 

“ Louisa! Don’t you know I have a headache? ” 

“ Louisa! Dear! Papa has a headache! ” The 
two exclamations from Mamma and Papa came 
simultaneously. Mamma continued: u I am sur¬ 
prised at my little girl. You mustn’t bother Papa 
when he is sick. The idea! Go down-stairs and 
finish your breakfast, and then come up and sit 
with Papa while I attend to my housekeeping.” 

Louisa went. But the congealed egg was by now 
too unattractive to consider, so she took her letter 
into the library to read. 

“ Louisa, my own! If you could know the thrill 
it gives me to write that. Or do you, my darling? 
You do! I can’t wait till morning to say it again, 
so I have to write it. My own, own, own Louisa! 

“ Have vou told them? What did thev sav? I 

4/ C / hJ 

haven’t told them here because Father came home 
in such a bad temper that I thought it would spoil 
all the fun. He is so disappointed about not being 
able to put me in * Learning and Phillipse.’ Much 
I care about that now! Oh, Louisa, can you be¬ 
lieve that this thing is as old as the world! Can 
you believe that any two people ever felt as we 

161 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


do! How can we not have known it all these years! 
I’ll be around first thing in the morning! But Bll 
telephone first-” 

Louisa raised her head anxiously and looked at 

the clock. If he should come- And Papa’s 

door open up-stairs. But he wouldn’t come—he 
would have had her letter. 

“ Good-night, my darling. My darling. My 
Louisa. Think of that! Your Johnny. 

“ P. S. What kind of a stone do you want? 
Could we go to-morrow afternoon and choose the 
ring? I will have told Father by that time and he 
will give me a half holiday to celebrate.” 

“ Louisa! ” came a call from up-stairs. 

“ Yes, Mamma,” she answered, and went on with 
her letter. 

“ P. P. S. I’ve been rummaging for a photo¬ 
graph and I found a snapshot of you on top of Bed 
Mountain with six dogs. It’s great. Good-night 
again, darling.” 

“ Louisa! ” 

“ I’m coming, Mamma.” 

The telephone was ringing as she went up-stairs, 
but she was not aware of it. She was not aware 
of anything but a great confusion of mind, happi¬ 
ness, anxiety, and a lot of unclassifiable sensations 
all mixed up together. She stood at the door of her 
father’s room and did not see him lying on the 

162 




TEE SABLE CLOUD 


tossed bed, nor hear Lauchlin on the stairs speak¬ 
ing to her. He had to come and stand beside her 
to deliver his message. 

“ Miss Louisa. Mr. John is on the telephone.” 

She started like one waking from sleep at the 
name, and her father sat up in bed, with an ice- 
bag tied over one eye. He waved a finger at her. 

“ Louisa! Remember what I said! ” 

“ i United we stand, and divided we fall,’ ” said 
Mamma. “ My little girl must stand by Papa.” 

“ What do you want me to do ? ” asked Louisa in 
a dazed voice. 

“ Say you’re not at home.” 

“ But-” 

“Mr. John sent a message, Miss. I told him 
Mr. Lea was sick and you were with him, and he 
said he had got your letter, and should he come 
around? ” 

“ No. Miss Louisa does not wish him to come 
around.” 

“ But—Papa-” 

“ Lauchlin, you hear what I say! ” 

“ But- Wait, Lauchlin! ” 

“ Lauchlin! Ho as I tell you. Oh, my head! ” 
Mr. Lea dropped back on the pillows and Mrs. Lea 
put her hands on Louisa’s shoulders and pushed 
her gently from the room. 

“ Louisa, you mustn’t bother Papa. Go to sleep, 
Fred, dear. Don’t you think about anything. 
You’ve got a bell beside you and if you want any- 

163 





THE SABLE CLOUD 


thing Louisa or I will be in the gallery within call. 
Come, Louisa.” 

She led the way to her favorite seat under the 
big window. 

“ Papa is very much bothered down-town just 
now, Louisa. He has such big affairs on his mind. 
His poor head nearly bursts with them, and my 
little girl must make things as easy for him as she 
can. Kiss Mamma.” 

Louisa leaned and kissed her. 

“ Mamma didn’t know Louisa had written to 
Johnny Rocoft. What was it about, dear? ” 

It was only to a sort of outer protective con¬ 
sciousness, not to Louisa herself, that her mother’s 
words reached. She answered truthfully, but she 
conveved a falsehood. 

4/ 

“ I wrote last night to say that he had better 
not come here any more until he was asked.” 

“ That’s my little girl! Mother knew she would 
stand by Papa. Louisa couldn’t be disloyal if she 
tried. It isn’t in her.” 

“ But, Mamma, I-” 

“ Yes, darling? ” Mrs. Lea smiled encourag¬ 
ingly. 

“ I—I love Johnny! ” 

“ Louisa! Don’t use that word! ” Mrs. Lea 
sounded profoundly shocked. “ You like Johnny. 
So do we all. Johnny is a nice boy. At least I 
always thought he was. But I may have been mis¬ 
taken in him. We were mistaken in his father.” 

164 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ But I do love him, Mamma.” 

“ Louisa! Not that word! My little girl must 
not think of him any more, when his father has 
insulted Papa.” 

“ But I can’t understand it! ” exclaimed Louisa, 
“ Uncle John couldn’t go around insulting people 
like that.” 

“My little girl hasn’t lived very long,” sighed 
her mother, “or she would know that when it 
comes to a question of money, men can do anything. 
It turns them into beasts, dear, perfect beasts. 
Unless they are real gentlemen at heart, like Papa. 

Uncle John- But Papa says you must not call 

him that any more.—He is angry with Papa be¬ 
cause he did not let him know about this rice busi¬ 
ness. That shows just what sort of a person he is, 
and the chances are his son is like him.” 

“ I don’t believe it! ” cried Louisa. “ Oh, 
Mamma, I do love Johnny.” 

She dropped on a stool at her mother’s feet 
and Mrs. Lea passed her hand gently over her 
hair. 

“What an imagination my little girl has,” ihe 
said soothingly. 

“ It isn’t imagination. I love him.” 

“ * In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly 
turns to thoughts of love.’ It’s just the same with 
girls, dear. You must look out for that.” 

“ I tell you I love him and he loves me.” 

“I don’t doubt that he loves you, darling. 

165 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


Everybody who sees my little girl loves her. But 
she must learn to distinguish between what they 
call ‘ calf love/ dear, and the real lasting affection 
of a grown man like Winton Finley.” 

“ Hang Winton Finley! ” 

“All right, dear! Don’t shout at your poor 
mother. Nobody is trying to force you to care for 
Winton Finley. Oh dear! Oh dear! Why must 
everything come at once? Your father sick, and 
all this worry, and then for you to behave like this. 
I think you might show a little consideration for 
me, as though you didn’t know I have more than 
I can bear.” 

She began to cry with long silent sobs that tilled 
Louisa with consternation. 

“ Oh, Mamma! ” she exclaimed, throwing her 
arms around her and kissing her repentantly. 

Mrs. Lea raised eyes like those of a whipped dog. 

“ Nobody ever thinks I mind anything,” she 
moaned. “ You all come and pile your troubles on 
me as though I could bear everything. I’m too 
good-natured, that’s what’s the matter with me. If 
I was sometimes cross, you wouldn’t bother me.” 

“ I didn’t mean to bother you, Mamma.” 

“ It’s easy to say that,” Mrs. Lea wiped her 
eyes between sobs. “ I suppose you don’t think it 
bothers me to have my daughter make herself 
cheap.” 

“ I haven’t made myself cheap! ” Louisa’s face 
flushed to flame. 


166 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ It’s just what this generation leads to,” con¬ 
tinued Mrs. Lea. 

“ But, Mamma. You were in love yourself once. 
Didn’t you love Papa? ” 

“ Of course I loved your father. I do still. He’s 
my husband.” 

“ Johnny is going to be my husband.” 

“ Louisa, don’t talk like that! My little girl 
cannot have any idea what it sounds like.—Who’s 
that? ” 

The door below the gallery had opened. 

“ It’s Freddie. May I come up? ” 

“ Certainly, dear. Come up. Look at the time, 
Louisa! And I haven’t ordered dinner. Stay here 
till I come back! ” 

She hurried away, and Louisa, as Freddie ap¬ 
proached, went and stood with her back to the 
room, looking out of the window. 

Freddie sat down in her aunt’s chair, and began 
tangling the worsted on her work table with 
thoughtless fingers. She watched Louisa’s back 
intently and silently for a long time. Finally she 
decided to speak. 

“ I—I couldn’t help hearing, Louisa,” she began 
hesitatingly. 

“ Hearing what? ” asked Louisa. 

“ About Johnny, of course.” Freddie said it 
sharply. But she caught herself up. “ What is the 
matter, Louisa? ” she asked, gently. 

“ Matter with what? ” asked Louisa again. And 

167 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

again with, laudable self-control Freddie checked a 
quick retort. 

“ Of course if you don’t want to talk to me, it’s 
all right,” she said. “ But you ought to talk to 
somebody. Bottling isn’t good for you. And if 
you want my opinion, Aunt Lea is worse than no¬ 
body.” 

“ I’m not bottling,” answered Louisa, turning 
around. “ Oh, Freddie, look how you’ve mixed up 
Mamma’s worsteds. Now I’ll have to sort them all 
out again! ” 

“ Don’t bother. I’ll tell her I did it. I’m not 
afraid of Aunt Lea.” ' 

“ I wish you wouldn’t speak like that about 
Mamma! ” Louisa flashed into an indignation 
which was a real relief to her feelings. 

“ I didn’t mean anything,” apologized Freddie. 
“ Now look here, Louisa. I’ve been thrown much 
more on my own than you have, and I know what 
I’m talking about. If you want a person to under¬ 
stand what you’re saying, you’ve got to speak the 
same language, and young people and old people 
don’t. Not once in a ’coon’s age, not more than as 
though they were French and Scandinavian.” 

For answer Louisa gave a gigantic snuffle. She 
dove for her handkerchief a little too late, and a 
big drop fell on the worsteds. 

“ Don’t you marry Finley! ” exclaimed Freddie, 
sharply. “ Don’t you let them persuade you.” 

Apparently she had struck the right note at last, 

168 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


for Louisa turned towards her with a long, “ Oh-o! 
Freddie, what shall I do? ” she cried. 

“ Get hold of Johnny, first thing. See what he 
says.” 

“ But I can’t do that.” 

“ Why not? ” 

“ Because. You know. Papa’s sick and it would 
make him worse.” 

“ Kot! Don’t bring him here, then. See him 
outside.” 

“ I couldn’t see him underhand.” 

“Ye gods! They ought to be ashamed of them¬ 
selves making you into the kind of girl you are! ” 

“ Louisa, dear. Are you still here? ” Mrs. Lea 
called from down-stairs, and Freddie gave a final 
low warning as her aunt came around the gallery. 

“ If you don’t see Johnny to-day, you’ll accept 
Winton Finley next time he asks you. You mark 
my word, uoav.” 

Mrs. Lea stooped to kiss Louisa. “ That’s my 
good little girl. Papa didn’t call? ” 

“ No, Mamma.” 

“ He’s probably asleep. Now run along, dear. 
You don’t know what a blessing Louisa is to Papa 
and Mamma.” She turned towards Freddie with 
a slightly aggressive expression as she said it, as 
though she meant to inquire whether her mother 
could say as much of her. But before they reached 
their destination her eyes fell on the tousled wors¬ 
teds and she gave a cry, “ Oh, who did that-” 

169 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I did,” said Frederica. But lier aunt did not 
pause long enough to hear her. 

“ I do think people might take a little care,” she 
said, beginning to cry again. “ I’m always looking 
after other people’s comfort, and nobody cares any¬ 
thing about me. I don’t count in this house. Not 
as much as one of the servants.” The tears came 
with a rush and she dropped into a chair. 

Louisa put her arms around her. “ Mamma, I’m 
so sorry. I’ll straighten them out again. Don’t 
cry like that.” 

“ I’m tired,” gasped Mrs. Lea. 

“ I know you are. You were up almost all night. 
Do go lie down.” 

“ Somebody has got to stay with your father.” 

“ I’ll stay,” said Louisa. 

“ He’s got a bell. The servants will hear him.” 
Freddie’s voice had a distinct ring of scorn. 

Mrs. Lea looked at her over the top of her hand¬ 
kerchief as she blew her nose. “ When you 
have been sick a few times yourself, Freddie, 
you will know that it is not the same thing to 
have hired servants take care of you as those you 
love.” 

“ He’s only got a headache, anyway.” Freddie’s 
tone linked headaches with pin-pricks. 

“ Your uncle is a great sufferer,” remarked Mrs. 
Lea with a final sob. 

“ Never mind what Freddie says, Mamma. Do 
go lie down.” 


170 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Mrs. Lea looked out of the window with pale, 
undecided eyes. “ It's such a beautiful day, I hate 
to keep you in the house.” 

“ Never mind, I'll go out this afternoon.” 

“Well, dear, all right. And this morning you 
and Freddie can have a nice quiet morning at home. 
It will do you good-” 

“No quiet morning at home for me!” inter¬ 
rupted Freddie. “ I'm going slumming.” 

“Frederica! With that Jew! That radical 
editor! He may be a Bolshevist.” 

“ He may be,” admitted Freddie. “ I don't care 
if he is.” 

“ I forbid it,” said Mrs. Lea firmly. 

But Freddie said with equal firmness: “No you 
don't. Look here, Aunt Lea. About Louisa and 
Johnny-” 

Mrs. Lea looked at her daughter reproachfully, 
her eyelashes still matted with tears like pine nee¬ 
dles in the rain. Louisa reached out her hand to¬ 
wards her. 

“ Yes, Mamma—I—I love Johnny.” 

And once again her mother began to sob. 

“ The idea, Louisa! I never heard of a girl be¬ 
having as you do. I should think you would be 
afraid! I really should. Setting on your poor 
mother when you know I am tired, tired to death 
slaving for you and your father. But you don't 
care. You don't care at all. You only think of 
yourself. Go away. No, I won't kiss you. Go 

171 




TEE SABLE CLOUD 


away, I tell you. Leave the room and let me have 
some peace in my own house.” 

The two girls went, and she continued to sob 
gently, seeing through her half-closed eyes all the 
worsted lying tossed on the table. They were the 
inconsequent little peak of her troubles. The 
foundation of them was this: Louisa and her fa¬ 
ther were at variance. The worst fears that had 
haunted her when she had thought she might have 
a son were realized. “ He and we.” So closely had 
she linked Louisa with herself that it had never 
occurred to her that she might ever pull away, de¬ 
manding a life that was not subservient to that of 
her father. They were the women, he the man. It 
seemed to her almost immoral that Louisa should 
set her will against his. She sobbed very bitterly 
indeed. 

By evening Mr. Lea was better. Not very much 
better, not enough to get up, but enough to want a 
little amusement in his darkened room. Mrs. Lea 
and Louisa were with him when Freddie came home 
from her slumming expedition which had lasted all 
day. They called her to come in and her eager 
voice was like a sudden breeze in the stuffy room 
where before there had been only slow droning. It 
seemed, indeed, to Mrs. Lea that it was almost too 
much like a gale for the poor sufferer. She said: 

“ Hush, dear, not so loud,” to Freddie’s first ex¬ 
clamation : “ I’ve had a 'ivonderful time! It’s all 
too perfectly dreadful! ” 

172 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ But it is,” Freddie insisted. “ I don’t know 
when I’ve enjoyed anything so much. Louisa, you 
ought to have been with me, you really ought! ” 

“ Where have you been, anyway? ” asked Louisa. 
Her mother said: 

“ Just a little lower, Freddie dear, please.” 

“ I’ve been all over in the worst places.—You’d 
have been horrified, Aunt Lea. Mercy, how some 
of them smelt! Pooh! ” She sniffed quite loudly. 
“ I smell them still. I don’t know whether it’s in 
my clothes or in my nose. We went first to see a 
woman whose husband assassinated someone in the 
Balkans—I don’t just know who or why—but he 
was an oppressor of some sort—you know, the kind 
that ought to be assassinated—and the man 
escaped and came over here and they deported him. 
So then they caught him and executed him, and 
the woman has to support the whole family—isn’t 
that disgraceful! Isn’t it enough to turn you into 
a Socialist! ” 

“ It doesn’t interest me,” said her uncle from the 
bed. 

Freddie opened her mouth quickly as though she 
intended to say something sharp. But on second 
thought she decided not to, and closed it again 
tight. 

“ I know something that will interest you,” she 
remarked. “ I know how the papers learned that 
you were home the other evening.” 

“ How?” 


173 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“Why- This Leo Lowenthal I was out 

with, you know. He is editor of the Coming 
Times . It’s an awfully good paper—I’ve got a 
copy of it here—you can see it if you want—but 
the stodgy old government is afraid of it because 
it tells the truth, so it isn’t allowed through the 
mail, and the Associated Press won’t let him get 
their news. The result is that of course he 
has to pirate it. He has people on the staffs of 
various of the big papers—nobody knows who they 
are, of course—who pass the news on to him. . . . 
One of them told him Winton Finley called up all 
the papers that evening and told them you 
were-” 

“ Frederica! ” Mr. Lea said it distinctly, syl- 
lable for syllable. He sat up in bed with sudden¬ 
ness and emphasis. “ Frederica,” he repeated, 
“ you have gone too far. I have tried to be patient 
with you. I have tried always to remember your 
upbringing and your disadvantages. I have tried 
by every means in my power to make up to you for 
them. I have indulged you more than I have in¬ 
dulged my own daughter. I have allowed you to 
be with her, to make my house the starting point 
for excursions of which I highly disapprove, so that 
you might, at least, have a respectable place to re¬ 
turn to. I have listened to your stories, which I 
must say are such as I never expected to hear under 
my roof. But this is going too far. You have 
gone with the worst type of man to the worst type 

174 






THE SABLE CLOUD 


of place—you have sought them out deliberately— 
and you have brought back slander-” 

“ It isn’t slander,” interrupted Freddie. “ It is 
true.” 

“ We will not discuss it,” said Mr. Lea, falling 
back on his pillows. “ It happens that I know. I 
talked to Mr. Finley about it. Let me be quiet 
now. My head aches again. When I feel well 
enough, I shall write to your mother and tell her I 
think she had better send for you home.” 

Mrs. Lea pushed the two girls out of the room. 
Freddie hooked her hand on the door frame and re¬ 
marked around the corner of it: “ There are none 
so blind as those that won’t see, that’s sure.” 

Her aunt gave her quite a sharp tap. Then she 
tiptoed softly back and sat down on a chair by the 
bed. 


175 




CHAPTER XVI 


On the day that Mr. Lea was at home sick with a 
headache Mr. Livingstone Morres came into the 
Down-Town Lunch Club rather later than usual. 
Most of the tables were already taken when he 
arrived. Up in the third floor rear room where 
smoking is prohibited his accustomed place was 
doubtless still reserved for him, but instead of tak¬ 
ing the elevator straight there he meandered slowly 
up the central staircase, stopping on each floor to 
look thoughtfully through the doors at the diners 
while he chewed his ever-present toothpick. At 
the door of the grill room where the air was thick 
with chop- and cigar smoke, he stood so long that 
many heads were raised to look at him as he 
towered like a serene colossus among the agitated 
little waiters, and when, after a few minutes’ hesi¬ 
tation, he came leisurely into the room, two men 
who had been watching him from a table near the 
door turned to follow him with their eyes. 

“ Thought Piebald Liv didn’t like smoke and sat 
up-stairs! ” remarked one of them. 

“ Probably he’s in training for the beautiful 
Lois’s drawing-room. She likes smoke,” replied 
the other. 


176 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Make you a "bet lie’s liming a bird,” said the 
first. 

“ Shouldn’t wonder. They say tin plates are go¬ 
ing to take a flier.” 

“ Where did you hear that? ” 

“Winton Finley tried to borrow from Jones to 
buy. Liv had tipped him.” 

“ Believe it? ” 

“ Jones told me Winton is putting in all he can 
scrape together.” 

“ Guess it’s straight, then. Winton’s no fool. It 
wmuld be interesting to know what the bargain is, 
wouldn’t it? Liv gets his money’s worth every 
time. They say the election is going to be close 
next autumn. Finley’s going to have to put up a 
fight for his place.” 

“ Come off! I think better of Finley than to be¬ 
lieve he’d sell himself. He stands for the respect¬ 
able element in politics.” 

“ Can’t stand for anything if he doesn’t get in, 
can he? Shall we have our coffee in the library? 
Let’s see where Liv went.” 

“ There he is over by the window, at the table 
with John Kocoft, see? ” 

“ I see. Wonder what they’re talking about. It 
wasn’t accident took him there. . . .” 

“ Doesn’t look to me as though Kocoft intended 
to talk at all.” 

Neither did it look so to anybody else who hap¬ 
pened to notice. He was holding a newspaper up 

177 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


before his face, scowling into it with such a bad- 
tempered expression that no one, before Morres, 
had so much as dared approach his table. Mr. 
Morres, however, looked so supremely unconscious 
that it seemed as though he could not have noticed 
it. He chewed his toothpick comfortably, stuck 
his hands in his trousers pockets, tipped his chair 
back and smiled genially at the surrounding com¬ 
pany while he waited for his dinner. After a little 
he let his chair down on its four legs again and 
leaned forward to speak to the man at the next ta¬ 
ble. 

“ Say, Lane. Get stuck in the rice business like 
the rest of us? I caught it between the eyes my¬ 
self.” 

Lane grinned. “ Hard luck, old fellow. I came 
out on top for once in my life.” 

Mr. Rocoft lowered his paper just sufficiently to 
look over the top of it at the speaker. “ How did 
you manage that? ” he asked. 

“ Simply held onto my stock—perfect cinch. 
Thirty thousand dollars dropped straight into my 
pocket without my lifting a finger. Wish I’d had 
more of it.” 

Mr. Rocoft disappeared behind his paper again 
with an inarticulate growl. 

“ So you held on, did you? ” said Morres. “ I 
sold out and lost—gosh, I hate to calculate, count¬ 
ing what I might have made, how much I did lose.” 
He shook his head dolefully and then slammed his 

178 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


fist down on the table. “ I hate to be played for a 
sunfish! Did you have a tip?” He moved his 
bread aside to make room for his steak. 

“ Not a thing.” Lane chuckled with satisfaction. 
“ To tell the truth, I tried my best to unload the 
stuff, but I couldn’t find a buyer at any price. It’s 
a queer thing, you know.” He leaned forward with 
a pointing finger to emphasize his words, and Mr. 
Kocoft lowered his paper an inch or two to look at 
him over the edge again. “ I went over to the office 
there one day last week and I said to those fellows, 
‘ Look here, you say you’re going to weather this 
storm. You’re spending thousands of dollars say¬ 
ing it in the papers. Now you prove you believe it 
by taking this stuff off my hands. You can have 
it for anything you’ll give,’ I said to ’em. ‘ And 
I won’t squeal if you make your everlasting for¬ 
tunes out of it. If I save something out of the 
wreck, that’s all I ask for.’ And there wasn’t one 
of them would touch it. I tell you I was hot! I’m 
a poor man and I can’t afford to lose money. But 
I’m glad now, all right. That’s the way to do busi¬ 
ness.” 

“ It’s no way to do business! ” Mr. Rocoft 
jammed his newspaper down angrily between his 
chair and the wall and attacked a plate of pan¬ 
cakes which had just been put before him. “ Makes 
it a matter of luck. Look at yourself. Matter of 
luck you couldn’t sell. You didn’t use your wits 
in time to clear your skirts. It’s putting a pre- 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


mium on stupidity. People who take an intelligent 
interest in their securities sell and lose.—Why 
couldn’t they have notified their stockholders? 
You call it fine. I call it a mighty fishy game.” 

“Now look here, Rocoft, you be fair. Didn’t 
they tell us day after day, ‘ Hold on, hold on, don’t 
sell ’? Wasn’t it in full sheets in all the newspa¬ 
pers and wasn’t it ten feet high all over the land¬ 
scape? ” 

“ Yes, and who believed them? ” 

“ You ought to have believed them. Get a bunch 
of men like that and you’ve got to trust them. Use 
your common sense. They’d have had to pay twice 
as much for the patent, if they’d let the matter get 
public. True, isn’t it? It’s a case where a little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing. You knew too 
much, or not enough, and you sold. I knew noth¬ 
ing, and I held on. And I’m like the rank and file 
of the stockholders.” 

“ Bah! ” ejaculated Mr. Rocoft, emptying a pot 
of maple syrup on his pancakes. “Darn! Now 
I’ve drowned the things! ” 

“I’m afraid you lost money,” said Lane, light¬ 
ing his cigar and rising from the table. 

“ I’m afraid I did.” 

“ Hard luck, old fellow! ” Lane patted him on 
the back and went off with a bit of a swagger. 

After he had gone, Rocoft and Morres ate their 
respective cakes and steak in silence. Morres, who 
swallowed two mouthfuls to the other’s one, rapidly 

ISO 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


caught up with his neighbor. He had reached the 
pancake stage himself before Mr. Eocoft had half 
emptied his plate. It was at the transition moment 
that he spoke again. 

“ How’s that boy of yours getting on? ” he asked. 

u Not at all.” 

“ Oh, come! I don’t believe that. I see him 
around our place a good deal. He’s a crony of my 
girl’s, you know.” 

“ Glad to hear it,” said Mr. Eocoft, salvaging a 
remnant of good manners. 

“ He’s a fine boy. What’s the trouble? ” 

66 He hates stock-broking, and nobody ever did 
anything well that he hated. He says he wants to 
get into something tangible, something that he can 
see that he’s actually doing something for the 
world.” 

“Well, you can’t blame him for that,” said 
Morres. “ It’s the one good heritage that has come 
to us from the war, that desire on the part of the 
young people. It’s the thing that’s going to save 
civilization if anything does.” 

“ Heritage of the war, all right,” growled Eo¬ 
coft. “ Comes from gallivanting round France in 
a uniform wiien he ought to have been home learn¬ 
ing his lessons. You may call it good, but I don’t. 
Damn discontented restlessness! That’s what I 
call it.” 

u Wrong. Call it c divine discontent,’ if you 
w T ant, but not damned. It’s the only thing that will 

181 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


counteract Bolshevism—meaning by that term, 
lawlessness in general. Sitting round in your best 
clothes cursing it isn’t going to kill it. The young 
people have got to get out and work, do things that 
are tangible, that even the blind masses can see the 
use of. I wish I had a boy! ” 

Mr. Bocoft grunted with his mouth full of pan¬ 
cake, and finding he was not going to make an 
articulate answer, Morres went on. “ It’s a hard 
generation to bring a girl up in, though. You don’t 
know just what to do with her. What ought her 
part to be in the world? You don’t want her to be 
a drone, that’s sure. But you don’t want to throw 
her out into all this struggle and competition, 
either. It’s unsexing. That’s what I call it. I 
wouldn’t have my girl one of these hard, pushing, 
unfeminine creatures you see down here, not for 
anything in the world. I’d rather have her a but¬ 
terfly.” He had been getting more and more ex¬ 
cited as he spoke and he slammed his fist down on 
the table as he said “ butterfly.” It was not by 
design that he mentioned Lois, but because he ac¬ 
tually could not help it. He never could, she was 
so continually on his mind that she broke into 
every conversation before he had been talking ten 
minutes, just as she had broken in now and as she 
had broken in the other evening when he was talk¬ 
ing to Finley. “ That’s what my girl is now! ” he 
exclaimed. “ A butterfly. I suppose they call it a 
‘ flapper.’ But she’ll settle down in a few years, 

182 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


when she marries. Not that I want her to marry 
for the sake of getting married. That’s the first 
step in a string of divorces. If the right man comes 
along, well and good. But how are you going to 
be sure he is the right man?—No. You’re lucky to 
have a boy, Rocoft. Not half the responsibility. 

You know-” He leaned across the table. “ It’s 

all very well for you and me to be content with 
stock-broking! ” For the sake of argument he re¬ 
frained from mentioning tin plates, without which 
he would, as a matter of fact, not have been content 
at all. “ But if I had a boy, I’d be glad to see him 
want to get into something else. Fine spirit, I call 
it.” 

“ Well, I don’t find fault. I don’t blame him,” 
said Rocoft. “ But the fact remains that he’s no 
good in my office.” 

“ Let’s change him, then. He’s young. There 
isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t try a couple of 
things before he settles down. What’s he want to 
do? Study law? He’s not too old.” 

“Wouldn’t touch it. 6 Words and paper’ he 
calls law and authorship and stocks—everything I 
was brought up to think a fitting occupation for a 
gentleman.” 

“Politics?” suggested Morres. 

“ Dirty, he says.” 

“Might clean ’em, if he wants a job that is a 
job. Doctoring? ” 

“ He’d run a mile from a sick-room.” 

183 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


il Don’t blame liim. So would I. Hasn’t lie got 
*ny ideas but negative ones? ” 

Not very definite. He says be wants something 
solid and real, that you can take hold of and han¬ 
dle. That won’t keep you tied to your desk talking 
to well-dressed people all day. Something that 
will take you out into the world and let you see real 
men and women—and lots more of that kind of 
stuff.” 

“ Say! that’s just the sort of boy I’d have liked 
to send down to the Argentine to put through a 
deal in Silver Brights. I know that boy of yours. 
He’s got the stuff in him. Sorry my man sailed 
yesterday.” 

They finished their meal abreast. 

“ Coffee in the library? ” suggested Morres, and 
Bocoft said “ Yes.” He was busy in his own mind 
wondering what this sudden interest in his son 
might mean. It was certainly worth finding out. 
The interest of Piebald Liv was not to be despised. 

Most of the members had left the club by this 
time, and they found the big fireplace in the library 
deserted. Bocoft offered Morres a cigar and he 
accepted it, letting it droop from the corner of his 
mouth in the way he habitually let the toothpick 
droop while he talked. Mr. Bocoft, who was rather 
fastidious in his manners and never took his fingers 
from his cigar for an instant, acquired a distinctly 
superior feeling from watching him, a little pat¬ 
ronizing in spite of the difference in their bank 

184 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


accounts, a pleasant sense that he was conferring 
a favor by sitting in the club with a fellow who did 
not know how to smoke. A good fellow, though, in 
his way. Kind-hearted. Quite pathetic to hear 
him talk of his daughter. Liv was speaking. 

“ It’s too bad,” he was saying. “ He’d have been 
just the boy for the job. And it would have been 
just the job for the boy. It’s a difficult thing for 
a young fellow to get a good opening nowadays. 
It isn’t only among the lower classes that there’s 
unemployment. I had to put off four as tine young 
men as you ever knew this winter. I hated to do it, 
but business is business. I’m not running a chari¬ 
table institution.” 

“John has an opening. You know Learning, 
Moreau Learning, the steel man? ” 

“ Sure, I know Learning.” 

“Well, he’s cutting off a shoot of his business, 
castings, and handing them over to his son. 
They’ve asked Stephen Phillipse and John to go in 
with him. They’re to be under the wing of the old 
man. Sort of training school to prepare them to 
run the whole shooting match later on, that’s what 
it amounts to.” 

“ And does Master John think he’s going to get 
anything better than that? ” 

“ Hardly. But they want capital.” 

“ I’d give it to him, if I were you. It’s a good 
investment.” Mr. Morres rose and stood with his 
back to the tire. 


185 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I would if it weren’t for tlie Pan American.” 

Mr. Morres took several long painful puffs of his 
cigar before speaking again. 

“ Funny thing your getting left on that,” he re¬ 
marked. “ I thought you were a friend of Lea’s.” 

“ Much good that did me.” 

“ Didn’t he tell you to hold on? ” 

“Yes. He talked just like the bill-boards. I 
guess he wrote them. But there was nary a reason 
to be got out of him.” 

Morres dropped back heavily on the sofa. “I 
suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself. It’s 
because I’m an outsider, probably, and I haven’t 
got what you people call 4 traditions.’ But frankly 
I can’t see it. There’s your friend. He knows how 
you can make thirty, forty, fifty, any number of 
thousands of dollars, without hurting a soul.. And 
he doesn’t tell you. Why didn’t you have a better 
right to it than the man who bought your stock 
last week? Why didn’t you have as good a right to 
it as Lane? It may be because I’m an outsider, but 
I can’t see it! ” 

It was, Mr. Kocoft felt, rather ingenuous in 
Morres to call himself an outsider. There was 
something attractive about it. It showed a sim¬ 
plicity of soul in a man who was toadied to as he 
was. 

“ Snobbism, Morres,” he said. “ That’s what I 
call it, snobbism. There are lots of different kinds 
of snobbism. This is what I call ‘ holy snobbism.’ 

186 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


And it’s the hard shell variety. You can’t break 
through it. If a man is snobbish about his birth 
and position, he may soften. If he’s snobbish about 
his money, which is the vulgarest snobbism on 
earth, he may have a soft human spot about him 
somewhere. But if a man’s a holy-snob—takes the 
‘ holier-than-thou ’ attitude, there’s no hope for 
him. He don’t care one iota what it cost him or 
costs anybody else. More it costs, better it makes 
him feel.—From saints and martyrs the Lord pre¬ 
serve us.” 

Mr. Morres, who was a Roman Catholic, crossed 
himself hurriedly. The action loosened the tension. 
Mr. Rocoft, who professed to be an atheist, thought 
it was amusing, and laughed. 

“ Not dead saints, Morres. I don’t mean dead 
saints. They’re all right. They can’t do any more 
harm. But from live saints, preserve us. I haven’t 
any use for them.” 

“ You mean you regard Lea as a saint? ” asked 
Morres. 

“Not quite! Hardly!” Rocoft chuckled over 
the idea, repeating again, “ Not quite a saint. Not 
quite! ” 

Mr. Morres frowned at the fire, threw away his 
half-smoked cigar and sighed with contentment as 
he put a toothpick in his mouth. 

“ It’s a darn shame about John,” he said. “ He 
won’t get another such chance in a hurry.” 

He really was a surprisingly good chap, Morres, 

187 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Mr. Eocoft thought. So John and the daughter 
were cronies. Could that be what the fellow was 
driving at? He smiled behind his cigar. He must 
ask John what sort of a girl she was. She might 
not be such a bad sort, after all. You never could 
tell from the newspapers. 

“I suppose you don’t like to borrow?” asked 
Morres. 

“ I’m tired of borrowing—and lending, too.” 

“ Specially lending,” suggested Morres. Mr. Eo- 
coft’s tone invited the remark. 

“ Specially lending, as you say.” 

“ Now look here, Eocoft. I don’t want to butt in. 
You know your business and I don’t. But if any¬ 
body owed me money and I could get it from him, 
I’d do it for the sake of my boy.” 

“ There are some things you can’t do,” said Eo¬ 
coft with a bit of the martyr in his own tone. 

“ Things that you can’t do, even for the sake of 
your boy? I’d like to know what.” 

“ You can’t turn a friend out of his house.” 

“ Holy snobbism,” remarked Morres. 

Eocoft laughed, and then fired up. “ Not at all. 
I’m not in the same class of hard-shell idiocy as 
Lea, by a long shot.” 

Mr. Morres, glancing at the clock, saw it was 
getting late, but except for giving an extra hard 
bite on the toothpick he made no sign. 

“Pm interested in that boy of yours,” he said. 
“ One of the finest young fellows I ever see around. 

188 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Yd gladly put up the money, if you'd let me. I'd 
consider it a good investment. How much is 
it? ” 

“ Fifty thousand dollars. I'm not going to load 
up any such debt. I've got too much money tied 
up in this loan." 

“ How much ? " 

“ A hundred thousand." 

Morres whistled. “ Mortgage? " he asked. 

“ Yes." 

“ Residence, you said? " 

“ Yes." 

“ What part of the city? " 

“ Uni-" Mr. Rocoft caught himself up 

abruptly. “If you understood that, please con¬ 
sider it confidential," he said. 

“ Of course." Morres waited a few seconds, as 
though expecting Rocoft to go on. Then, as he did 
not, he spoke himself. “ You surprise me. Lea has 
the reputation of being very well off." 

“ Such reputations aren't always deserved," said 
Rocoft. “ Usually they're founded on expenditure 
rather than on income. Not that I am worried 
about the money in the long run. He’ll be able to 
pay all right some time, but he's run into a shoal 
at a darned inconvenient time for me." 

“ I should say it was a pretty high mortgage on 
that property." 

“ I don’t know. The value is down at present. 
But it's coming up all through the neighborhood 

189 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


and it’s only a question of time before the rise hits 
University Place. If he sold now he’d sell at a 
loss. That’s why I don’t like to press him.” 

“ He’d have to sell, would he? ” 

“ This or the place at Isle du Nord. And that’s 
mortgaged, too. Funny, isn’t it, how a man as 
clever as he is in other people’s business has no 
sense when it comes to his own affairs? It’s a 
triumph the way he put through that Rice Patent 
Purchase. Yet here he’s stony broke.” Now that 
Mr. Rocoft had started talking, it was remarkable 
how easy it was to go on. The thought of the 
daughter helped. It was not difficult to imagine it 
was all in the family. “ Of course this is confi¬ 
dential,” he cautioned as an afterthought. 

“ Of course. He hasn’t changed his mode of 
living at all.” 

“ No. He lives on his professional income, and 
that must be huge. Think what the Pan American 
will have to pay him.” 

“ And saves nothing for the girl? That’s hard 
with her upbringing.” 

“ Unpardonable. I told him so. And he didn’t 
like it.” 

“ Does he pay his interest ? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“ When does the mortgage fall due? ” 

“ September, on three months’ notice.” Rocoft 
rose and stood in front of the fire, holding his coat 
tails apart over his arms. Morres stared between 

190 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


his legs at the falling embers. He threw away his 
toothpick with sudden energy. 

“ Look here, Rocoft. I’d like to help that boy of 
yours. I don’t know why, but I’ve taken a fancy 
to him. And that mortgage is perfectly good. Just 
as good as a bank note if you’re not in a hurry. 
And I’m not. Let me take it off your hands. I’ve 
got faith in the Washington Square district. It’s 
all right if it doesn’t get swamped by this Green¬ 
wich Village movement, and that is too artificial 
to last.” 

“ Couldn’t do it.” 

“ Why not? ” 

“ There are some things you can’t do.” 

“ All right. The poor kid stands a swell chance 
between the upper and the nether millstones of 
yours and Lea’s consciences. That’s all I can say. 
What difference would it make to Lea who holds 
the mortgage? ” 

“ I’m not going to foreclose.” 

“ Neither would I.” 

“ Will you put that in writing? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Then I can’t do it.” 

“ Well, think it over. You may find some other 
way. When does the boy have to give his answer? ” 
He pulled out his watch, suddenly in a hurry. 

“ To-morrow.—You would not foreclose?—You 
see my position? ” 

“ Perfectly.” 


191 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Well, then-” 

“ I can’t stay any longer now. Get the papers 
ready and send them around to my office. Send 
them by the boy. I’d like to talk to him.” 

As Mr. Rocoft said to himself, there really was 
something appealing about Morres. 

Morres meanwhile was saying to himself that he 
had probably done a fool thing. A useless thing, 
at least. But it did no harm, and if it was money 
Finley was after—he could tell him, anyway.—It 
was something to do for Lo—and that was some¬ 
thing. 


192 



CHAPTER XVII 


By the spring in his master's step, Mr. Morres’s 
white-wigged footman, who was quick to read 
signs, knew as he swung back the crystal portal 
that something good had come to pass. 

It w T as Mr. Morres who called the front door the 
crystal portal, but only in his own mind and occa¬ 
sionally to Miss Cotenet, who, though she kept the 
fact in the background, shared his taste for luscious 
phrases. Rich words gave Mr. Morres the same 
agreeable sensations as cheesey macaroni and tur¬ 
tle soup. He loved to savor on his palate such 
phrases as “ palatial residence,” “ marble corri¬ 
dors,” “ Oriental rugs,” “ deep divans,” “ luxuri¬ 
ous furs.” “ Opulence ” was a word that needed no 
sauce at all. He loved to read advertisements of 
house furnishings and ladies’ wear. He subscribed 
to the House Beautiful and to Vogue . It was, as 
Miss Cotenet used to say to her sister Letitia, quite 
a charming characteristic in him. It showed such 
a simple soul, so human. 

The simple soul, when he had time to notice it, 
took keen pleasure in his footman’s wig. It was at 
that rather than at the man under it that he smiled 
as he came in that evening. It was newly chalked 
and white as snow. 

“ Is Miss Lois in the house? ” he asked. 

193 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Yes, sir.” 

“Lo! Oh, Lo!” 

“ Hello, Daddy.” 

u Where are you? ” 

“ Up in Coty’s room.” 

“ Come down to the library.” 

“ Tea, sir? ” asked the footman. 

“ In the library. Have the ladies had theirs? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ For three, then.” 

Lois looked unusually well that afternoon. And 
Mr. Morres, simple soul, never guessed it was be¬ 
cause an hour ago she had looked so badly that she 
felt it was quite unjustifiable, considering the mat¬ 
ter was in her own hands. 

Her cheeks were velvet rose petals, her lips cher¬ 
ries, her eyes drops of the Mediterranean. It was 
thus that Mr. Morres phrased it to himself, repeat¬ 
ing the last simile over twice in his mind. “ Drops 
of the Mediterranean.” That was poetry. He 
sighed at a dim thought of far-off days when he 
would have liked to turn poet if the prose of tin 
plates had not been so all-absorbing. As a matter 
of fact he was a poet in his thoughts of Lois. He 
saw her through a rosy haze which was engendered 
entirely by his own mind. He felt very happy and 
genial that evening. 

Lois kissed him carelessly, and dropped into the 
corner of the sofa. 

“ Well, Dad, how’s the world? ” 

194 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Fine.” He put his toothpick in his mouth and 
looked down at her in delight. Her long slim legs, 
uncovered to the knee, shone metallic through her 
sheer silk stockings. It was a pretty fashion, short 
skirts, he thought. No harm in it unless your mind 
put it there—provided she didn’t catch cold. Her 
dress was cut low, very low, and she had no sleeves. 

“ Aren’t you cold, Lo? ” he asked anxiously. 

“ Cold? Why, Dad, this is a woollen dress. 
Throw me over the cigarettes, there’s a good boy.” 

He handed them to her and sat down beside her 
on the sofa. 

“ Ta-ta,” she said. “ So the world is tine, is it? ” 

“ Fine. Silver Brights have gone up five points. 
But I’m holding Finley’s for him at yesterday’s 
quotation. I told you that last night, didn’t I? ” 

“ Yes.” Lois crossed her knees and her skirt 
fell back, showing an inch or two of bare skin. 

Mr. Morres winced. “Pull your skirt down a 
little, Lo,” he said. 

“ Oh, don’t be old-fashioned, Daddy! My skirt 
isn’t meant to come down.” She gave a kick that 
sent it a trifle higher still. 

Her father turned and looked at the fire. 
“ Here’s the man with the tea,” he said, and his 
voice had a note of warning. But Lois paid no 
attention to it. 

Miss Cotenet came into the room, and Mr. Morres 
got up to welcome her. 

“ Will you sit on the sofa? ” he asked. 

195 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


Lois gave her no time to answer. She kicked her 
legs out along the whole length of it and said: “ I 
want to stretch. Sit on that chair by the fire and 
make the tea, Coty. Don't put it in front of me! ” 
she ordered, giving the tray such a push that the 
footman who was carrying it nearly dropped it. 
“ I’m not going to do all the work in this house,” 
she announced. 

Miss Cotenet, sitting where she was told, smiled 
anxiously upon her charge. 

“ I have been telling Lois, Mr. Morres,” she pro¬ 
nounced the last vowel decidedly as though it were 
an “ I,” “ that I think it would be a good thing for 
us to go away for a little change. She is decidedly 
run down after the winter's gaiety, and the first 
spring weather is hard on her. We might go to the 
Virginia Hot Springs, or, if Lois prefers, we might 
tun over to Europe for a few weeks.” 

“ I'm not going anywhere,” said Lois. “ You can 
go if you feel like it, Coty.” 

“ Don't talk nonsense, Lois.” 

“ I'm not. There isn't any reason you shouldn't 
go if you want to. Nobody is indispensable.” 

“ That is perfectly true, Lois.” Mr. Morres 
looked quite put out with his daughter. “ But Miss 
Cotenet comes as near being indispensable as any¬ 
one I know. I should feel very badly to have her 
leave you at present. Have you spoken to her about 
this other matter? ” 

“No, and I don't intend to.” Lois swung her 

196 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

feet down to the ground and straightened up to 
take her teacup. One always noticed what Lois 
did with her feet and legs. 

Miss Cotenet looked as though she might cry. 
“ I am sorry, Lois, that there is any matter you 
hesitate to speak to me about. I hoped you felt to 
me as to a mother.” 

“I am sure I don’t know how one feels to a 
mother,” remarked Lois. “ See what I bought to¬ 
day, Daddy.” She slipped a diamond bracelet from 
her wrist and handed it to him. “ I charged it to 
you.” 

Miss Cotenet as soon as she had finished her tea 
rose from her chair. “ I think if you will excuse 
me, I will go up-stairs,” she said. “ I was busy in 
my room.” 

Mr. Morres rose also. “We are very sorry to 
lose you.” 

“ Haven’t you finished ‘ Scarlet Petals ’ yet? ” 
asked Lois. 

“ I have not seen the book since you took it,” 
answered Miss Cotenet rather tartly. And Lois 
fished it out from the depths of the cushions among 
which she was sprawling again, and handed it to 
her with a laugh. 

Her father bit his toothpick through and spit 
it into the fire. “ I—I don’t like finding fault with 
you, Lois,” he began hesitatingly, “but really I 
think your manner to Miss Co tenet is a little sharp 
lately. You forget what you owe her.” 

197 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Haven’t you paid her wages? ” 

“ Lois!” 

“ It’s she who forgets her place.” 

“ Her place is that of a lady in your father’s 
house.” 

“ Fiddlesticks! Her place is that of an overfed 
parasite. I suppose you know she wants to marry 
you.” 

“Lois, what an idea! Such a thought could 
never have entered her mind. She knows I shall 
not marry again.” He glanced towards a photo¬ 
graph on the table where the light of the lamp fell 
on it. “ I’d fire her if-” 

“ Now, Daddy, keep your shirt on. It’s not ab¬ 
surd at all. When I get married, you’ll be awfully 
lonely, and you two will hit it off splendidly. You 
can’t have her living here, unless you do marry her. 
I simply won’t allow it. But I’ll be matron of 
honor at the wedding. Meanwhile she’s got to re¬ 
member her place. I love to see her squirm.” 

Mr. Morres rose with a very stiff and indignant 
back. 

“ I have some letters to write,” he said, crossing 
to the desk. 

It was a most unusual thing for Mr. Morres to 
write letters. He always dictated them. It oc¬ 
curred to Lois, as she watched him bending rather 
awkwardly over the paper and listened to the heavy 
pull of his pen, that except for his signature she 
had actually never seen his handwriting. Then it 

198 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


occurred to her that it must be a very private and 
particular letter which he took so much trouble 
about. She kicked her slippers gently off among 
the cushions and stood up, as silent as a breath. 
She tiptoed over and stood beside him, reading over 
his shoulder. 

“ Dear Lea: You will doubtless have received 
notification from Mr. John Bocoft that I have to¬ 
day taken over the mortgage he held on your prop¬ 
erty No. -University Place. I have done this 

simply as a means of helping Bocoft set up his son 
in business. I feel an interest in the boy and he 
had a good opening of which he was not able to 
avail himself for lack of capital. Bocoft refused 
to consider either a gift or a loan and suggested 
my taking over this mortgage, with, however, the 
verbal stipulation that I was not to press you for 
payment. I understand from him that you are a 
little cramped for funds at present and I am writ¬ 
ing this letter to set at rest any misgivings which 
this transaction may have raised in your mind. I 
do not need the money now, nor do I see any imme¬ 
diate chance of my needing it for some time to 
come. I firmly hope that when the mortgage falls 
due in September I shall be in a position to extend 
it for as long a period as you may desire. 

“ With sincere good wishes, I remain, 

“ Faithfully yours, 

“ Edward Livingstone Morres.” 

When Mr. Morres signed his name he always 
wrote it out to its utmost length, and gave each 
individual letter its complete space and value. 

199 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


Lois got back to the sofa in a couple of soft leaps, 
slid into her slippers and lay looking up at the 
ceiling with a gentle smile. 

She raised her head when she heard her father 
push his chair back. 

“ You’re a good Daddy/’ she remarked. “ You 
love me a lot, don’t you? ” 

“ Of course, Lois. All fathers do.” 

“ Do they? Do you suppose Mr. Lea loves 
Louisa as much as you love me? ” 

He looked at her quickly. But she was thought¬ 
fully puffing cigarette smoke towards the fire. 

“ Of course he does. What makes you ask? ” 

“ Because he never seems to love anybody but 
himself. I wonder what you’ll do next.” 

“ About wdiat? ” 

“ Anything and everything. I’m going up now. 
Coty, for instance,” she added with a laugh as she 
left the room. 

Mr. Morres, who had been following her, stopped 
with a sudden frown; he went back slowly to the 
fireplace and stood in front of it for a long time 
staring at the photograph on the table. He stepped 
forward softly at last, raised the picture and 
looked into the eyes that met his. 

“ But it will be lonely, Lois,” he muttered. “ It 
will be darn lonely, when the child leaves the 
house.” 


200 


CHAPTER XYIH 


Mr. Morres’s letter reached its destination 
after Mrs. Lea had established her husband in 
rather irritable convalescence, with cushions and a 
shawl, in her own chair on the balcony. She was 
moving avrny her tapestry frame to make room for 
a book table beside him, giving out little breathy 
noises because her work-basket had upset again. 

Louisa, who had received a letter also, was down¬ 
stairs on the main floor of the room reading it over 
and over. 

“ Louisa darling, what has happened? I have 
waited all day to hear from you and to-night I am 
a fit inmate for a lunatic asylum. I haven’t dared 
come to the house after your letter saying it would 
be better to keep away till you said come, and I 
haven’t dared telephone after that terrible formal 
message Lauchlin delivered. I am utterly bewil¬ 
dered. I don’t know what to think. If it wasn’t 
absurd, sheer melodrama, I should think someone 
was trying to keep you from me, trying to make 
you believe you don’t love me. Don’t believe any¬ 
thing like that, Louisa. Only see me and you will 
know whether you love me or not. 

“ It is all straightened out about Learning and 
Phillipse. I am going in with them after all. Old 

201 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


J 

Liv Morres, you know, Lois’s father, took over an 
old mortgage Father held and couldn’t collect. Fa¬ 
ther thinks he wants me for a son-in-law and can’t 
see why I find the idea absurd. Mayn’t I tell Fa¬ 
ther, Louisa? Please let me tell him. Oh, my dear, 
I am sick at heart! It will be a grief to me all my 
life, a grief that nothing, not even you, can ever 
make up for, that these first beautiful days which 
ought to have been so joyous have been stolen from 
us. 

“ Let me see you, Louisa.” 

She was reading over for the fourth time that 
part about Mr. Morres’s wanting Johnny for a son- 
in-law, which did not seem to her absurd at all, 
when the silence of the room was shattered as 
startlingly as though a bull had roared, by her fa¬ 
ther’s voice. 

“ Lizzie! ” he shouted, and the chains on the 
chandeliers rattled. 

Mrs. Lea gave a low, trembling “ Oh ” and 
dropped the work-basket, so that all the things she 
had laboriously picked up rolled away again under 
the furniture. 

“ Is there anything the matter, dear? ” she asked. 

Louisa, safely out of sight under the balcony, 
looked up and hurriedly stuffed her letter in her 
pocket as though she feared he might see her 
through the wood and plaster. 

“ Matter! ” he roared. u Matter! Matter! Mat¬ 
ter ! How can you ask such foolish questions, Liz¬ 
zie ! I know this will bring my headache on again.” 

202 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Couldn’t you let it wait till to-morrow, dear, or 
send it down to the office to be attended to? ” 

“ No. Listen to this.” He read the letter aloud, 
and Louisa, who had been slipping out of the room 
unobserved, was arrested by the name Rocoft in 
the first sentence and came tiptoeing up the stairs 
and round the gallery. 

“ There! ” Mr. Lea folded the letter when he 
had finished it, and put it with great deliberation 
in his pocket. 

“ Oh dear,” sighed Mrs. Lea. “ It is all very dis¬ 
tressing. I do think John Rocoft might have shown 
more consideration. But it is some comfort at 
least to know that Mr. Morres is in no hurry to 
have the mortgage paid.” 

“ Damn the mortgage! ” He kicked aside all his 
carefully arranged shawls and jumped up, tripped 
and fell back into his chair. “Damn the mort¬ 
gage ! ” he repeated. “ It’s the betrayal I care 
about. That John Rocoft should do such a mean, 
skunky, low down thing. Betrayal. That’s what 
it is. My friend! Oh, my head! ” 

“ Papa, I heard the letter.” Louisa had reached 
his side. 

“Eavesdropping, Louisa?” he demanded. 

“ I was in the room and you read the letter aloud. 
Of course I heard it. Will you please explain what 
it is about.” 

“ Business, and not your affair.” 

“ It is my affair, Papa. Johnny and I love each 

203 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


other.” She said it as quietly and simply as she 
might have said, “ I am thirsty.” 

“ Love! ” exclaimed her father. 

“ Louisa! ” cried her mother. “ Don’t bother 
Papa with trivial things when he has important 
matters on his mind, and his head aches too. The 
idea! ” 

“ Do you call my love a trivial thing, Mamma? ” 

“ Yes! ” Her father shouted the answer at her. 
“ A trivial, childish thing, that you will have out¬ 
grown and be ashamed of in a year. 4 When I was 
a child, I thought as a child’—read your Bible, 
Louisa.” 

“ But I have outgrown childish things.” 

“ Then do you mean to tell me that as a woman 
grown you love the son of a man who has betrayed 
your father—a perfidious friend, a traitor to all 
decent feelings—I should think you would feel 
ashamed, Louisa! ” 

“ If I understood, Papa.” 

“ Very well, you shall understand. This is what 
the modern generation leads to. Young people de¬ 
fying their elders, children questioning their par¬ 
ents.” 

“ Papa, I must understand.” 

“ Sit down! ” He threw himself backward in his 
chair. “ Oh, my head! Lizzie, see that my room is 
fixed. I shall go to bed as soon as this child stops 
baiting me.” 

“ I don’t want to bait you, Papa.” 

204 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ What do you want, then? ” 

“ I want to understand. I want to know from 
the beginning. Uncle John held a mortgage on this 
house? ” 

“ Mr. Rocoft held a mortgage on this house.” 

“ But I thought only poor people mortgaged 
their houses.” 

“ Have you ever been told you were rich? ” 

“I—I don’t think so. But I thought we were 
richer than that. We live so.” 

“We live as our ancestors have lived. Accord¬ 
ing to the position they left us. Do you wish to 
step out of your position like your Aunt Carroll? ” 
“ Of course not. All I want is to understand. 
Why did Unc—he—pass it over to Mr. Morres? ” 

“ Because he wanted to buy his young brat a 
partnership. Now listen. I can’t spend all day 
answering foolish questions. My head aches, and 
I want to get to bed. You have asked me to tell 
you and I will tell you. Don’t interrupt. Years 
ago, before you were thought of, I mortgaged this 
house to Mr. Kocoft for a hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars. It was then worth about a hundred and fifty. 
I did it to buy the Isle du Nord place from him. 
He was anxious to get rid of it and he wanted 
neighbors. He said the place had a future. It did. 
But it has outgrown it. There was a time when I 
could have sold it for twice what I gave for it; 
now I should be lucky if I got my money out. This 
property has gone down too, temporarily only. It 

205 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


will come back again, but now if I wanted to sell 
it I should have to sacrifice below the value of the 
mortgage. John Rocoft knows this as well as I do, 
yet he chooses this time to call in his mortgage. 
Doesn’t even wait till it’s due,—sells it to that 
vulgar upstart, Morres. There’s your loyal friend 
—your ‘ Uncle John.’ ” There was an indescrib¬ 
able sneer in the tone in which he said the last 
words. 

Louisa ignored it. “ Can’t you pay unless you 
sell? ” she asked. 

“ How? Are you tarred with the same stick? 
Are you suggesting that I ought to have smirched 
my honor in this rice transaction in order that your 
precious young whippersnapper of a lover might 
go into partnership with Learning and Phillipse? ” 

“ Of course I am not suggesting anything of the 
sort. Haven’t you any other money to pay with? ” 

“ Oh, I shall pay. Don’t you worry about that. 
I shan’t give Mr. Edward Livingstone Morres the 
pleasure of saying he holds a mortgage on my 
house. ISTot much. I’ll pay if we all go hungry.” 

Mrs. Lea, coming back from seeing that his room 
was ready, heard the last words. “ The idea, 
Fred! ” she exclaimed. “ I wish you wouldn’t ex¬ 
aggerate so. Come, go to bed, dear. Your room is 
all ready and I know your head aches.” 

“ It does.” He looked up at her with beseeching 
eyes, and she, dear devoted woman, slipped her 
arms under his shoulders to help him to his feet. 

206 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


But lie could not rise. He fell back against the 
cushions and sudden fear flashed across their faces. 
Louisa caught the look and felt it in her heart like 
a tightening screw. She sprang to him with a cry. 
But her strength added to theirs was not great 
enough to raise him. 

Later in the day, when the doctors had left and 
the house was once more quiet, Louisa sat down at 
the desk in the library. It was a difficult letter she 
had to write, but she did it very quickly, without 
pause or hesitation. 

“ My dear Mr. Rocoft: You have asked me for 
an explanation of why I do not care to see you 
again. I think your father can give it to you better 
than I can. Ask him whose mortgage it was he sold 
to Mr. Morres. I hope that you will neither write, 
call, nor telephone. 

“ Very truly yours, 

“ Louisa Liveright Lea.” 

When she had finished the letter she put on her 
hat and took it to the post-box to slip it into the 
slot herself. Coming in again she passed Frederica 
on the steps but she did not recognize her. She 
brushed by her as though she had been a stranger, 
or not there at all, and Freddie looked at her in 
wonder and dared not speak. This was not the 
Louisa she knew. It was a different girl. The soft 
baby trust was gone from her eyes. Her lips, which 
had laid lightly together like the petals of a flower, 

207 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


were shut tight and rigid. The very contour of her 
face seemed changed. It was no longer the round, 
wondering face of a child but the long, drawn face 
of a woman who has tasted sorrow. 


208 


CHAPTER XIX 


Mr. Morres loved decorum. In the office of the 
Silver Bright Tin Plate Co., Inc., he alone was per¬ 
mitted to move with impetuosity and speak with 
vehemence. The place was as quiet as a church. 
Even the typewriters were isolated. Peace and in¬ 
dustry brooded over the day. 

Through this peace and industry burst young 
John Rocoft. He burst from the elevator, burst 
across the outer office, and burst with a hurrying 
foot through the door marked “ President, Pri¬ 
vate” which no one but the President’s secretary 
was allowed to pass uninvited. 

Mr. Morres looked up with amazed severity from 
the papers on his desk. 

“ What the deuce-” he began, and then, rec¬ 

ognizing the intruder, “ Young man, what do you 

mean by coming into my office like that- 

Well, come on, now you’re that far. All right, Miss 
Leiter,” he nodded to the secretary, who with a 
face of consternation had hurried after him. 
11 Well now, what do you want? ” 

Johnny had stopped by the door. He was 
flushed, perturbed, hardly quite reasonable, and 
quite absurdly young looking. Excitement had 
made a schoolboy of him again. 

“ I won’t take it! That’s what it is! ” he ex- 

209 




THE SABLE CLOUD 

claimed. “ Mr. Morres, you’ve got to let me have 
it back.” 

“ I thought you said you wouldn’t take it.” The 
severity dropped from Mr. Morres’s face, at least 
back of it a hint of amusement flickered. 

“ Come, sit down, boy. Pull yourself together. 
I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Johnny caught a long breath and bit his lip. “ I 
guess I am a bit up in the air,” he admitted. u I 
ought not to have come into your office like that. 
I apologize.” 

“ All right.” 

“ It’s that mortgage on Mr. Lea’s house. I want 
you to let me have it back.” 

“ You mean your father wants it back? ” Mr. 
Morres was thinking what charm there is in young 
earnestness, young eagerness, even young distress. 
“ I wish you would sit down, boy. You make me 
nervous.” 

Johnny dropped into a chair opposite him. “ No, 
I don’t mean my father wants it. I want it.” 

“ What do you want it for? ” 

“ I want it. I- Father took it for me, but 

I won’t touch the money he got for it, Mr. Morres. 
I won’t touch a penny of it. He had no business 
to part with it. He ought not to have.” 

“ You think not? ” 

“ I know it.” 

“ Don’t you think, young man, that perhaps your 
father knows better? ” suggested Morres. 

210 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Not in this case. You have got to let me have 
it back, Mr. Morres.” Johnny leaned forward in 
his chair, his eager face close to Mr. Morres. 

“You have given up Learning and Phillipse, 
then? ” 

“ Yes. I can’t go in without the money and I 
won’t touch a cent of it. I’m sorry, of course, but 
I can’t help it. Father had no right to part with 
that mortgage.” 

“ And why not? ” Mr. Morres tipped his head 
on one side to look at him while he felt in his vest 
pocket for his toothpick. 

“ Because Mr. Lea is his friend.” 

“ It hasn’t done Lea any harm. ... In fact, 
it’s to his advantage. I’m not going to call it and 
your father would have had to.” 

“ I don’t care to discuss the matter, Mr. Morres. 
I want it back. Will you let me have it? ” 

“ You can pay for it, of course? ” 

“ No.” Johnny flushed. “ But I can work for 
it,—if you will trust me,” he added. 

Mr. Morres swung his swivel chair around so he 
faced the window. He looked up at the sky and, 
around the corner of the toothpick, whistled a long, 
low, monotonous note. 

“ There’ll be a storm this afternoon, I shouldn’t 
wonder,” he remarked at last, swinging back to 
face his visitor. “ How long will it be before you 
can pay? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 


211 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“Well—er—Pm afraid I should have to have 
some idea. A hundred thousand dollars is quite a 
debt for a young man to load up with.” His voice 
was somewhat bantering, but more than that, 
kindly. “Ho you work on commission or on a 
salary at your father’s office? ” 

“ I have resigned from my father’s office,” said 
J ohnny. 

“ Then—what are you doing? ” 

“Nothing, at present. I will have to ask you 
to trust me, Mr. Morres. I am willing to sign any 
papers you wish.” 

Mr. Morres leaned suddenly forward, his elbows 
on the desk. “ Look here, boy. There’s something 
back of this. What is it? ” 

“ I can’t tell you.” 

“ I think you would be wise if you did tell me. 
It was out of friendship for you that I took this 

mortgage-” He caught himself up sharply. 

“ No, that is not true. You’re too young to lie to. 
It’s a habit we get down here. But I feel friendly 
towards you and I was glad that incidentally I 
could be of use to you. I like you, you know, 
Johnny. All I have seen of you and heard of you 
up at our place with my daughter. She likes you, 
and I have great faith in my daughter.” Lois as 
usual had come into her father’s conversation. 
She might quite easily have monopolized it for a 
while, but Johnny kept to the old trail. 

“ Will you tell me, Mr. Morres, why you did it? ” 

212 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


Morres put his head back and laughed. “Tit 
for tat, is it? question for question? No, I will 
not.” 

“Neither will I.” Johnny said it firmly. 

“ Then—you might as well go along and let me 
get some work done.” 

Johnny’s firmness lost its edge. “ Had it any¬ 
thing to do with me? ” he inquired. 

“ Not a thing.” 

“ Then it must have had to do with Mr. Lea.” 

“ Only incidentally.” Mr. Morres reached down 
and pulled out one of the lower side drawers of his 
desk, put his feet in it, tilted his chair and stuck 
his hands in his trousers pockets. 

“ If you did it on Father’s account,” exclaimed 
Johnny, “ I’m very much obliged to you! But-” 

“ Look here, boy.” He withdrew one hand from 
his pocket and lifted a paper from the desk. “ It 
had just as much to do with your father as my 
picking up this paper has to do with the desk. It’s 
the place I got it from.” He tossed the paper back 
again. “ You stop questioning me. It’s none of 
your darn business why I did what I did. But it 
is my business why you want this mortgage. At 
least you’re not going to get it unless I know.” 

“ I can’t tell you.” 

“ Then don’t waste any more of my time.” He 
removed his feet to the ground. 

“ Will you let me have it if I do tell you? ” 

“ I won’t let you have it unless you tell me.” 

213 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“It’s a secret,” said John. “And it’s not my 
secret alone. I ought not to tell you.—But I must 
have that mortgage. It would be absolutely con¬ 
fidential, Mr. Morres, of course? ” 

“Absolutely confidential.” Mr. Morres put his 
feet back in the drawer. 

“ I—I’m engaged to Louisa Lea.” 

“ What! ” The feet came down to the floor with 

♦ 

a bang. 

“ At least I was. But she feels so badly about 
this mortgage that she has broken it. You see I 
have got to have it back, Mr. Morres.” 

Mr. Morres swung towards the window once 
more with his long whistle. “ You’re right, 
Johnny. Your father ought not to have done it. 
When you were engaged to the daughter he ought 
to have hung onto that mortgage like grim death 
to a dying nigger.” 

Now that someone else found fault with his 
father, Johnny came hotly to his defense. “ Father 
did not know I was engaged,” he said. 

“ He didn’t know? Then all this is your own 
fault, young man, and no more than you deserve. 
Why didn’t you tell him? You weren’t ashamed 
of it, I suppose? ” 

“ Of course I wasn’t ashamed of it,” Johnny’s 
voice held scorn. “ But I didn’t have time. It 
had only just happened.” 

“The devil you say! Look here, boy.” Mr. 
Morres pointed a finger at him. “ Do you think 

214 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


you can remember a piece of advice from now till 
you liave grown-up children? Try to, anyway. 
Never play cupid. Better light a cigarette.” 

Johnny looked mystified. “ I thought you 
didn’t allow smoking,” he said, catching at the only 
part of the sentence which was intelligible to him. 

“ I don’t—but you can do it. Now! Let me 
think what is to be done.” 

“ Let me have the mortgage! ” exclaimed 
Johnny. 

“ That, not! ” Mr. Morres said it decisively. 
“ I’ve done you enough harm without tying a lode- 
stone around your neck. It wouldn’t do any good, 
anyway. It isn’t my having the mortgage in my 
possession that Lea minds. It’s your father let¬ 
ting it out of his.” 

“ It’s the only thing to do,” insisted Johnny. 

“ It’s the only thing not to do. Go home and 
talk to the girl. Tell her you have been to see me, 
and just how you feel about it.” 

“ She won’t see me. She won’t listen to me. 
She won’t read my letters.” 

“Bad as that, is it? Well-” Morres fell 

silent, visibly cogitating. Johnny did not inter¬ 
rupt him. “ I tell you what I’ll do, boy,” he said 
at last. “ I’ll write Lea a letter that will make it 
all right. Oh, I’ll do it tactfully. Don’t worry 
about that. I never failed yet to bring a man 
round if I set to work to do it. Now that is all 

right. You go along now. Good-bye- By the 

215 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


way, what are you going to do, now you have left 
your father’s office? ” 

“ I have no plans.” 

“ How would you like to come into Silver 
Brights? ” asked Morres. “ I’ll send you down to 
South America for a while. There’s room to rise 
as far as you like.” 

“ I’d like it,” answered Johnny. 

“ Come to-morrow, then, and see me. Get your¬ 
self announced, next time. Go on now, hurry. 
Don’t stop to thank me. I’m busy.” 

The bell in his secretary’s room rang before Mr. 
Morres’s door closed on his visitor. 

“ Take this, Miss Leiter,” he said. “ To Fred¬ 
erick de Peyster Lea, Esq.-” 

The letter went out by the midday mail. By 
evening it had joined the pile which on Mr. Lea’s 
desk was growing day by day while he lay sick at 
home. 


216 



CHAPTER XX 


i 

Growth comes in years; change, in minutes. 
There was a new Louisa. The difference was not 
very noticeable at first. No one but Freddie, who 
had seen her face in the moment of stress, and 
carried the vision back with her to college like a 
cold vague dread, was aware of it. But the old 
Louisa was gone. 

Mr. Lea was not aware of it. He was aware of 
nothing, for to him, too, change had come in a 
minute. On the day when Louisa passed from girl¬ 
hood to womanhood, he passed from prime to age. 

Mrs. Lea wms aware of nothing, either. Her 
eyes saw only the outward things that passed be¬ 
fore them, and outwardly Louisa was all a daughter 
should be, helpful to her sick father, comforting to 
her worried mother. Mrs. Lea was not even aware 
how helpful nor how comforting. The family bur¬ 
dens, slipping from her husband’s shoulders, 
skipped hers and came to rest on her daughter’s 
unprepared ones, without awaking any wmnder at 
it in her mind. 

It was to Louisa that the doctor, feeling that 
here lay the strength of the family, whispered at 
the foot of the stairs. 

“A stroke, Miss Louisa. Not severe. He will 
be all right again—nearly all right—in a little 

217 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


while. And lie may never have another. Only 
spare him—humor him.” 

Out of this Louisa picked only ten words to re¬ 
peat to Mamma. “ He will be all right again in a 
little while.” 

And Mrs. Lea, smiling and sighing, said: “Yes, 
dear, in a little while. Go sit with him now, 
while I order his dinner.” 

And Louisa reminded her: “ The doctor said he 
must not eat anything, Mamma.” 

Louisa herself was not aware that she had 
changed. She was conscious only of strain, and 
concerned chiefly with outward things, unac¬ 
customed problems to be solved, unaccustomed re¬ 
sponsibilities to be met. 

Every morning there came a letter which must 
by no mishap be allowed to get up-stairs to Papa: 
every afternoon there was a card left at the door 
which must be destroyed before Mamma’s eyes fell 
upon it. She dared not answer the telephone her¬ 
self, and dreaded to have anyone else answer it. 
So much was left of her short love episode and so 
much only she acknowledged to herself. But the 
strain was as that of a violin string tuned above 
the pitch. 

She held her head very high as she went about 
her affairs, a little defiant in her attitude. Her 
imagination raised, through the mist of her igno¬ 
rance, the mortgage to a Gargantuan mirage of 
ruin. She thought that everybody in the city knew 

218 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


about it, and imagined them pointing and whisper¬ 
ing behind her back. As a matter of fact, only four 
people knew r : Mr. Rocoft with tight anger, Johnny 
and Mr. Morres with the feelings of conspirators, 
and Winton Finley with curiosity and uncertainty. 
(What is the truth?) No one else so much as sus¬ 
pected anything was wrong. 

There was nothing to make them suspect. Every¬ 
thing went on as before in University Place. The 
house ran as always on greased tracks, swept and 
polished by a small army of servants, the motors 
rolled up to the door on white-washed tires, the 
horses stamped impatiently at the mounting block, 
the opera box stood waiting. Life was quite 
normal, as stable and smooth as though the finite 
-was infinite and would go on forever. Life seems 
like that sometimes. But it was only a husk of 
infinity, and the seed of change was swelling inside 
the shell to crack it. 

Mr. Lea was not away from his office long 
enough for his absence to be remarkable and when 
he got back no one suspected there was more the 
matter with him than a grouch, which was amply 
accounted for by the fact that he had let another 
chance at fortune slip. Everyone admitted it was 
a highly honorable thing for him to have done, but 
no one denied that it must be trying to the temper. 
He was very much in the public eye just at this 
time, because he was negotiating with the Con¬ 
federated Rice Companies. Most of his plans had 

219 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


been laid before bis illness and exhibited all liis old 
brilliancy. He was running on tbe momentum of 
bis old force and as bis gait bad not yet slacked 
appreciably, no one guessed that tbe driving power 
was gone. No one but Louisa. Louisa knew. 

She bad seen it tbe first day be was out of bed. 
After they had helped him into tbe gallery and 
established him in Mrs. Lea’s chair, something, no 
matter what, made him angry. He* opened his 
eyes wide and the fire was gone from them. There 
was a white rim around the iris. His mouth 
mumbled. 

Louisa gave a cry and, running to him, buried 
her face in the rugs which were wrapped around 
him, and sobbed. Never before had she done such 
a thing. Never before would she have dared do 
such a thing. Tears bothered Papa. But this time 
when she raised her head she saw tears in his eyes, 
too. He mumbled to himself, indistinctly. “ Dis¬ 
loyal. It isn’t the money. It’s John doing it that 
hurts. It hurts, Louisa.” He beat the back of his 
hand into his palm, which is a hopeless, defeated 
gesture, and repeated: “ It hurts.” 

After that she had a different feeling towards 
him, a sympathy that was entirely new, a warmer, 
more conscious affection, but one that expected 
nothing in return, only to give and give and give. 
Her feelings for her mother also were undergoing 
a change. More and more as she watched Mrs. 
Lea bustling happily around with her little worries 

220 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


and her little pleasures from the old life, uncon¬ 
scious that the old life was dead, and that in the 
new life problems were big, she wanted to shield 
her, and ceased to expect shielding herself. If 
only she knew how to shield her. She searched 
like a netted creature for a way. She thought with 
envy of the young men who had been children with 
her and were now supporting themselves, and of 
Freddie up at college, making her choice of pro¬ 
fessions. She appraised her own value and found 
it nil, her own capacity and thought she had none. 
She lay awake nights thinking of lessons she had 
not learned and chances she had let slip. She read 
over “ help wanted ” columns and threw them down 
with a lump in her throat. She blamed herself for 
what was not her fault, the kind of girl she was, 
full of prejudices, inhibitions and pride. Pre¬ 
cisely what she had in her mind it would have been 
hard to say, perhaps harder for her than for any¬ 
one else. She was stunned by the sudden burden 
of problems and the wish to serve. 

And then the shell cracked. 

It happened one day that coming into the lunch 
club Mr. Lea saw Winton Finley and Liv Morres 
sitting together by the fire in the hall. They were 
apt to be there at that hour, lately. Winton had 
fallen into the habit of lunching early with Piebald 
Liv. Mr. Lea crossed the room and joined them. 
Bather he joined Finley. It was his company he 
wanted, and he wms hardly aware who his corn- 

221 

$ 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


panion was. Pie felt tired tliat day and sick, weary 
of life and tke perpetual struggle to keep up. 
Winton represented a refuge to him. His friend¬ 
ship was one in whose security he might relax, a 
sanctuary from the curious eyes of strangers 
watching, watching, watching, ready to pounce at 
a false step or a slip. The sight of him put almost 
a spring into his dragging steps and a ring into his 
voice as he held out his hand. 

“ Hello, Winton. Glad to see you / 7 

Cordiality radiated from Finley as brightly as 
light from a flame, if less warmly. Curiosity and 
uncertainty were not allowed to dim it. He shook 
the proffered hand heartily. 

“ I’m glad to see you , Mr. Lea. How are you, 
sir? 77 

Mr. Lea glowed in the light of his smile. “ Very 
well, very well , 77 he said. “ Never better in my 
life. A bit under weight, perhaps, but that is a 
good thing. It 7 s dangerous to get fat at our age, 
eh Morres ? 77 

In the early days when he had been one of the 
elder boys at the school where Morres came, a 
shivering, raw lout from the country, to get the 
corners rudely snipped and polished, Tin Plate 
Liv (not yet Piebald Liv) 7 s figure had been a never 
failing butt for a joke. But now as he spoke the 
recollection of the mortgage came to Lea and 
sapped the pleasure out of the subtle condescension 
in his tone. It is hardly ever dignified to patron- 

222 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


ize a man to whom you owe money. The situation 
snapped into his mind as unbearable. 

“ That reminds me, Morres! ” he exclaimed. 
“ Your letter telling me that you had taken over 
the Rocoft mortgage came the day I was taken ill. 
—You know I have been sick, quite sick,—and I 
believe I forgot to answer it. I haven’t caught up 
with my correspondence yet. I have been so 
pressed with this rice business. There is a pile of 
letters that high on my desk.” He held his hands 
a foot apart, exaggerating. 

Mr. Morres stirred uneasily. “ That’s all right,” 
he said with a touch of embarrassment. “ Did you 
get my second letter? ” 

Lea shook his head. “ It must be in the pile.” 
Winton Finley started to move away, but he laid 
his hand on his arm. “ Don’t go, Winton, stay and 
lunch with me. So you wrote a second letter, did 
you? I can only offer you my profound apologies. 
I ought to have notified you at once that I intend 
to pay off the mortgage in September. I have 
meant to do it for some time, but you know how 
one postpones things wdiich are not urgent, from 
day to day, till it mounts up to years and years.” 

“ Don’t do anything about it till you read my 
second letter,” said Morres. 

Mr. Lea opened his eyes upon him. “ I shall pay 
if in any event,” he said. 

“ Just as you want, of course, Lea. But some¬ 
times it isn’t convenient-” 

223 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Convenient! ” repeated Mr. Lea. The white 
rim showed around his iris. “ There is no ques¬ 
tion of convenience. I gave it when I was a young 
man, just starting in, in order to enable me to buy 
the Isle du Nord place from Rocoft who had over¬ 
loaded up there. I didn’t have much ready cash 
then, mostly promise and confidence—I had enough 
confidence, certainly.” His mind w T ent off at a 
sudden tangent as it had done lately. “ Too much 
confidence in Rocoft. He’s angry about the Pan 
American—he lost money and blames me. He 
talks as though it was a debt I owed him to have 
given him a tip, when I didn’t use my knowledge 
myself. Demanded payment of this mortgage be¬ 
fore it was even due as a sort of retaliation against 
me. But you can’t bully me.” His mouth mum¬ 
bled a little and he paused to steady it. “ That’s 
one sure thing. You can’t bully me. It’s funny 
how you don’t know a man till the shoe pinches.” 

He would never have spoken like that before his 
illness. Morres was perplexed by his hurrying, 
shuffling manner. He muttered “ Read my letter, 
at all events,” and slipped away. 

Finley was interested. Not so much in the 
words as the manner. The old gentleman was los¬ 
ing his grip. He would be talking about the rice 
deal soon. He did not look as though he were long 
for this world. The young man stayed and ate a 
second lunch with him. That afternoon he called 
on the daughter. 


224 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


Mr. Morres, going into his office that afternoon, 
stopped by the desk where young Rocoft was sit¬ 
ting. 

“ Say. Lea hasn’t read my letter yet. It’s 
buried in the mail. I’ve told him it’s there, and 
he’ll look for it now.” 

He passed on and Johnny leaned over his papers 
again with an expression on his face which lately 
had been dying from it. 

It was in the evening that infinity went smash. 

Mr. Lea came into the library where his wife 
and daughter were sitting and without any pre* 
liminaries, announced: 

“ I have sold Leaside.” 

Mrs. Lea let her tapestry drop in her lap. 

“ Oh, Fred, the idea! ” she exclaimed. 

Louisa, who was sitting close by the fire staring 
into the flames, got up and stood behind her mother, 
resting her hands on her shoulders as though she 
would shelter her bent old figure with her straight 
young one. 

“ So quickly? ” she asked. 

“ Practically sold it.” Mr. Lea had always en¬ 
joyed making a sensation, and had an eye for the 
picturesque statement. “I have put it in the 
hands of Jones and Little and they tell me they 
have a customer who is looking for just such a 
place. They are sure to take it.” 

“ Take Leaside! ” repeated Mrs. Lea, strug- 

225 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


gling to realize it. “ Why, Fred, they mustn’t do 
that. The idea! What would we do without it? ” 

“ We may do without this before we are 
through.” He dropped into his chair. After the 
fatigue of the day, the excitement of the news he 
had to tell had acted like a stimulus, but now it was 
over it was as though a taut cord had slacked and 
let him down. He shrivelled in his chair. “ I’ve 
reached the end of my tether,” he said, wearily. 
“ I can’t work any more.” 

And infinity was shattered. In its place was 
a sense of the mutability of life and a restless 
dread. 

Yet still things went on very much as before. 
Mr. Lea went down-town whenever he was able and 
took no further step towards a material change. 
Mrs. Lea drove out less, talked less and embroid¬ 
ered less. She sat for long hours at a time beside 
her tapestry frame with her hands idle in her lap 
and her eyes fixed vacantly on receding happiness 
and approaching calamity, so dazed by them both 
that she realized neither very clearly and stared 
dumbly into a vague gray misery. 

Louisa, watching her, planned wilder plans and 
dreamed dreamier dreams, but did not know how to 
begin to give them being. 

And all the time she was living the life of a 
debutante, dining, dancing, laughing; her nights 
beginning at dawn, her days at noon. Just now 
they were rehearsing the big theatricals which are 

226 ^ 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


an event of every season, and hour after hour she 
spent singing a silly little song, saying a silly little 
speech and turning a silly little pirouette, till her 
anxieties fitted themselves to the music and whirled 
with it in her head. 

The change in her was beginning to be notice¬ 
able now. Her gaiety had no longer quite the 
spontaneity of a butterfly dancing in the sunshine. 
The other girls were addle-pated about their per¬ 
formance as they had been in the autumn about 
“ coming out.” They talked, breathed, dreamed 
nothing but their play. But Louisa thought of 
other things, and her face was not like theirs. 
People remarked it to each other. They said it 
was the death of Hoel which had caused it. But 
Winton Finley wondered. And Johnny went 
home and buried his face and sobbed as only a girl 
is supposed to do. 

Once he tried to speak to her. It was at a 
dinner at Zaidee Brown’s. Louisa had greeted 
him like anybody else, as she came into the room, 
wdth a light touch of the hand and a lighter smile. 
But when after dinner he went to her wdiere she 
sat a little apart from the rest of the girls, she 
looked up at him with hard cold eyes that held, if 
only he had had the sense to see it, more of fear 
than anger. 

“ Don’t come here! ” she exclaimed. 

Trusting in the cloak of good manners which 
makes so much possible and so much impossible, he 

227 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


continued, nevertheless, to draw up a chair. She 
stood up quickly. 

“ Shall I go, or will you? ” she asked. 

“ Louisa! Please! ” 

“ Which? ” She took a step forward, and in a 
drawing-room there was nothing he could do. 

u Stay where you are,” he said, “ I won’t trouble 
you. But you are unfair. You won’t read my 
letters, you won’t see me, you won’t listen to me.” 

“ No.” 

“ You must listen to this much-” 

But she took another step forward and he was 
obliged to draw back and let her pass. 

She went and joined Bobby White who was talk¬ 
ing to a girl who didn’t count. No girl counted 
any more with Bobby except as they had counted to 
Noel. Between him and Louisa, Noel was a bond, 
as though they still felt the touch of her warm 
hands as she had stood between them that evening 
of the dance. 

Lois Morres was sitting on a sofa with Winton 
Finley at the other side of the room. She signalled 
to Johnny to come to her. 

“ Quarrelled? ” she asked. 

“ Of course not! ” 

“ I think you’re not telling the truth.” She blew 
a puff of cigarette smoke through her nose, cut it 
short and made a couple of rings. She was quite 
proud of this accomplishment. Winton Finley 
said: “ Bravo, Lois, well done,” and she waved her 

228 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


silk legs to and fro gently, as a dog waves an ac¬ 
knowledging tail. Motion challenges attention, 
and Lois’s legs were undeniably pretty. “ I think 
you were quarrelling about me,” she repeated, look¬ 
ing at Johnny. 

“We never mentioned you!” he exclaimed. 

She laughed. “Johnny, you’re adorable! You 
rise so. Isn’t he adorable, Winton? Get up 
and give him your seat. You can go talk to 
Louisa.” 

Louisa saw him coming and pretended great pre¬ 
occupation with Bobby in hopes Winton would be 
forced into conversation with the girl who didn’t 
count. But he refused to be. He stood beside 
Louisa’s chair and at the first pause leaned forward 
and said “ Louisa.” 

She had ceased to resent his calling her by her 
first name. It was useless. 

“ Come over here and talk to me,” he pointed to 
the chairs she and Johnny had left. 

She shook her head, but she was obliged to go. 
The girl who didn’t count had taken the opportu¬ 
nity to recapture Bobby and Louisa was keeping 
him standing because she had taken his chair. She 
rose and crossed the room. 

“ Ah, this is nice,” said Finley, and then 
abruptly he asked: “ What do you think of Lois? ” 
It is possible to acquire a reputation for frankness 
quite easily by talking about the things you are 
thinking about without saying what you think. It 

229 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

imparts a spontaneity of manner which is most en¬ 
gaging. 

“ What do I think about her? ” repeated Louisa, 
glancing towards her. 

“ Yes. You’ve known her since she was a little 
girl; what sort of a person is she? ” 

“ Exactly the sort of person she appears, I should 
say.” 

“ Is that a catty remark?” 

“ If you please to put cattyness in it.” Louisa 
was still trembling from the strain of her words 
with Johnny. Her attention was fixed on the clock 
and the length of time still to get through before 
she could go home. 

“ You don’t like her, do you? ” said Finley. 

“ I didn’t say that.” 

“ Your eyes did when you looked at her. You 
think she’s a flirt.” 

“ But surely that appears very clearly on the 
surface.” 

“ You don’t think it goes deeper? ” 

“ I don’t know. Girls don’t go very deep with 
Lois.” 

“ That’s a catty remark, anyhow.” 

“No—that is—I beg your pardon, what was it 
you said? I didn’t hear. That clock. It moves in 
jumps, have you noticed? ” 

“ Louisa! You’re not paying any attention to 
me. You have been watching the clock ever since 
we sat down.” 


230 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“I’m sorry. I guess I'm tired." She brought 
her eyes round to him, but they hesitated for an 
instant as they passed over Johnny Rocoft. 

“ Lois says you and Johnny have quarrelled," re¬ 
marked Winton. 

“ Johnny and I? What nonsense." She flushed 
slightly. 

“ Isn't it nice about him? " said Winton. 

“ Going into Learning and Phillipse? It's just 
what he wanted." 

“ Oh, you're way behind the times, Louisa! 
That was given up long ago. He's going down to 
South America for Mr. Morres about Silver 
Brights." 

“ Is he? How nice!" she exclaimed, with a smile 
she felt quite proud of. “ Wouldn't it be splendid 
if he and Lois made a match? I'm going home 
now. Good-night." 

“ That's why I asked you what sort of a girl Lois 
is," said Finley, standing up as she rose. 

u She’d make a fine match for him, I think." 

Louisa stopped on her way to the door after she 
had said good-bye to Mrs. Brown, to speak to 
Johnny. “Mr. Finley has just told me about 
South Aonerica. Congratulations." 

Then she hated herself for having said it. But 
she had the blind desire to strike, that every 
wounded creature has, and she had not realized 
how it would hurt till she saw Johnny's face. The 
look in his eyes haunted her. 

231 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


* 

Winton was waiting to put her in her car when 
she came down-stairs. 

He bent and kissed her fingers in the darkness. 

“ Do you remember what day of the month to¬ 
morrow is, dear? ” he whispered. 

He went back and sat with Lois, who was all 
a-bubble with enjoyment. This was the sort of 
evening she considered made life worth living, full 
of undercurrents and what she termed “ intrigue.” 
It made her think of French romances and pow¬ 
dered hair. Her taste for them was a variation 
of her father’s taste for phrases. 

She went home and wrote invitations for a din¬ 
ner party which was to include Louisa and Winton 
and Johnny. 


232 


CHAPTER XXI 


Louisa took Lois’s invitation to her father, to 
consult him about it. He had become a much more 
consumable father since his illness. It seemed as 
though the outer armor had gone and the inner 
being was exposed, an inner being such as Louisa 
had never suspected dwelt in her father; a being 
as keen to feel as herself, as exposed to the touch 
of joy and sorrow, as sensitive to kindness and 
harshness, as desirous of approval, as helpless be¬ 
fore fate. These attributes she had supposed were 
the attributes of femininity. She had been edu¬ 
cated to the theory that men and women are es¬ 
sentially different, women creatures of feeling, men 
reasoning beings, removed by their intellect to a 
plane above their womankind. Now she was ac¬ 
quiring a broader view of humanity, for her father 
had become not only more consultable, but more 
consulting also. 

He was sitting in the library now, close by the 
big window, with his eyes half closed against the 
light, and his mouth mumbling a little. It was a 
warm afternoon. Spring was feeling tentatively at 
the city. The grass in the little plot in front of the 
house was turning green and the magnolia tree was 
in fat pink and white bud. A troop of quarrelling 

233 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


sparrows chirped and screamed in its branches, and 
over the housetops the pigeons circled and dipped. 

He turned his head slowly as Louisa came up the 
steps to the gallery. 

“ In a very little while it will be lovely at Isle du 
Nord,” he said, and blinked and swallowed. 
“ Spring is the best time there, I think. Though 
I don’t know. It’s beautiful in summer, so cool 
when it is hot everywhere else—and in the fall, 
those silent, motionless days, when the sunlight 
is soft through the mist and the glory of the hills 
shines like fire in an opal. It’s all so lovely, I 
don’t know which is the loveliest, do you, Louisa? ” 

“ No, I don’t, Papa.” 

“ Of course there are grander places. I am not 
one of those people who pretend to think it can 
compare to Taormina or Amalfi or places like that. 
But to me it’s the only place in the world.” He 
smacked his hands together back against palm in 
that new despairing gesture he had acquired. “ It’s 
because so much of my happiness is there, all in 
the woods and on the hills and on the bay. I think 
—sometimes it seems as though when you went 
back you could pick up your old happiness, a 
shadow of it at least, in the places where you left 
it. I was so full of hope, you know, when I bought 
the place. Your mother and I were just married. 

I hardly knew more of life than you do now-” 

he stopped abruptly, and turned towards her with 
a return of his old manner. 

234 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Is there something you want to speak to me 
about, Louisa? ” 

“ Yes, Papa.” 

“ Be quick, then. I have work to do.” He made 
as though he would throw off his rugs and rise, but 
his attention was caught by something outside the 
window and he dropped back. “ Did you ever no¬ 
tice those pigeons, Louisa? ” he asked. “ Where do 
they come from? ” 

“ Somewhere near Sixth Avenue, I think.—I’ve 
had a note from Lois Morres asking me to dinner. 
Shall I accept? ” 

Mr. Lea sat thinking for a minute, and every¬ 
thing about him seemed to tauten. His mouth 
ceased to mumble. His eyes widened and steadied. 
His open, listless fingers clenched. 

“ Yes, certainly, go,” he said. “ There is no rea¬ 
son you shouldn’t. I have told Morres that I shall 
pay the mortgage in September. I am under no 
obligation to him and there is no awkwardness. 
That is what I particularly wanted to avoid, awk¬ 
wardness, and I have done so. I want you to be¬ 
have to the Morreses exactly as you have always 
done. He is a very decent chap, and not in any 
way to blame for what happened. As there is no 
son I am glad to have you go to his house.” 

His figure slumped again. His fingers began 
playing restlessly with each other. 

“ I don’t like to trouble your mother, Louisa. 
She is so upset, but I—I can’t seem to decide. 

235 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

What do you think we ought to do this sum¬ 
mer? ” 

Here was change indeed! Mr. Lea asking Louisa 
what they ought to do! But it was not the first 
time. Already a dozen times he had put the same 
question. And she could not answer it. He hardly 
seemed to expect her to. He went on without 
pause, thinking aloud because there was someone 
to think to, and that was a relaxation. 

“ I have made so many mistakes. I can't see how 
I came to make so many mistakes. I lie awake at 
night thinking about it and I don’t see how I came 
to. I had the reputation of being clever. I never 
lost a cent of anybody else’s money. It seems so 
extraordinary. There was Mexico. It looked so 
stable under Diaz. And the German steamship 
lines. And oil. Why should every oil field I 
touched go dry? And—and then about you, 
Louisa. Perhaps your Aunt Carroll was right and 
I should have hardened you, as she did Frederica. 
It’s a hard generation. But I couldn’t stand hav¬ 
ing you like Frederica.—Are you angry with me, 
Louisa? ” 

“ No, Papa.” She laid her hand on his knee to 
quiet him because he was growing excited. 

“ God, Louisa, I wish you were married! I think 
if you were married to someone I trusted, like, say, 
Winton Finley, I could sleep at night.” Louisa 
stirred but he had caught her hand and his hold on 
it tightened. “ It would take such a load off my 

236 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


mind that I think I could sleep, and if I slept I 
should get well. I can’t sleep now for worrying.— 
And then I’d have a son-in-law. If I had a son-in- 
law everything would be different. That’s the way 
the world is meant to go, the old men to advise the 
young and the young men to help the old. I could 
still advise a young man, you know T , Louisa. My 
mind is all right. It’s only my vigor for fighting 
that’s gone. And modern business is a constant 
fight. I can’t keep the pace. I’m going down, 
down, down, like an old dog. You don’t like Win- 
ton Finley enough to marry him? ” 

“ No, Papa.” 

“ Not yet. But I pray God every night that you 
may come to, and you will, Louisa. I know you 
will, you must.” 

The beginning of his illness was hazy in his mind 
and he had forgotten what she had told him of her 
love for Johnny. 

“ Yes, certainly accept Lois Morres’s invitation,” 
he ended suddenly with a flare of his old manner. 
“ And if you need a new dress, buy it. Don’t get 
an exaggerated idea of things, like your mother. 
I want you to look well.” 

After that Louisa sat for a long time leaning 
against his knee while he talked and played with 
her hair, pulling gently at one front lock and 
twisting it tight around his finger. It was a game 
he used to love when she w r as a little child and he 
was still young himself, and gentle tempered, not 

237 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


yet worried even by the perplexities of a lady’s 
education. Then he used to love to twist her curl 
and dream of the future. Now he loved to dream 
of the past, and Louisa was very patient. He told 
her about his boyhood and young manhood in this 
house with his mother and father and his sister 
Anna, who was afterwards to become Louisa’s 
Aunt Carroll, Freddie’s mother—so beautiful she 
was, so sweet and full of fun, with such a string of 
admirers—and from them all to choose Caleb Car- 
roll—the only one among them not tit for her. It 
had broken his mother’s heart. Yes, it had killed 
her, so vulnerable are parents to the blows their 
children deal them. 

So the afternoon dragged away till Mrs. Lea 
came home. 

It is all very well to talk of free will, but at least 
a third of a person’s actions are governed by some 
other person’s will, resisting it or complying with 
it, and another third by sheer luck. It was rather 
a high estimate, probably, to allow him a third of 
the power over himself. If Scheherazade had not 
fallen that day in the Park, Louisa would not have 
wakened to her love for Johnny when she did. 
Perhaps she would not have wakened to it for 
years, when it might have spelled worse disaster, 
or perhaps she would not have wakened to it at all, 
and gone to her grave with a lonely heart. 

So also if the hall clock from Leaside had not 
come home from being mended on this particular 

238 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


afternoon, tlie clock that hung in the well of the 
stairs and regulated all the life of the house by its 
soft silver chime, Louisa might not have—done 
what she did. 

Mrs. Lea found the clock lying in a long box on 
the hall table when she came in from her drive, and 
she had Lauchlin bring it into the library and open 
it. He demurred a little. It had been so well 
packed at the shop, perhaps it would be wiser for 
Madame not to undo it till they got to the country. 
But Madame wished to undo it. There was noth¬ 
ing in the world which gave her quite the same 
pleasure as opening boxes. She loved the long, 
slow squeaks and final hurry of nails pulling out 
of wood, and the crinkle and dust of excelsior. 
Her eyes glistened with excitement of unwrapping 
tissue paper, even when she knew exactly what was 
inside. 

She followed Lauchlin into the library, and Mr. 
Lea, leaning on Louisa’s arm, came down the stairs 
from the gallery to meet her. 

They were a family of habits. All morning and 
till tea time any one of them who was at home sat 
up in the gallery. But for tea they came down to 
the main floor and sat around the fireplace. After 
dinner they stayed for fifteen minutes convers¬ 
ing in the middle drawing-room before coming 
back to the library and their books and embroi¬ 
dery. 

Mrs. Lea stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband, 

239 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 

and pulled her daughter down so she could reach 
her forehead. 

“ Did you have a nice rest this afternoon, Fred 
dear? ” she asked. “ Has Louisa been looking 
after Papa? My little girl is getting to be very- 
thought ful of others. Kiss Mamma again, dear.” 
These two were all her heart’s world. With them 
before her eyes and a box to open, her immediate 
cup of happiness was full and she could forget all 
that was not immediate. She could always forget 
easily. 

But the cost of forgetting is remembering again, 
never growing used to circumstances, but having 
them strike a fresh blow of never diminishing 
poignancy every time the thought of them comes. 

She turned away with a little bustle of busy¬ 
ness. “ Lauchlin, spread a sheet of paper on the 
floor before you take out the excelsior. Oh dear, 
what a mess! ” She sighed as though she were 
not in reality enjoying the mess exceedingly, but 
when the clock was lifted out of the box and laid 
on the table all in its nice soft tissue paper wrap¬ 
pings, she broke into frank smiles and hurried to 
it with busy fingers. 

“ What have you got there? ” asked Mr. Lea 
from the depth of the big armchair where Louisa 
had settled him. 

She turned shining eyes upon him. When she 
was pleased, fifteen years fell like a veil from her 
face, and Louisa could easily imagine what a sweet, 

240 


THE £ABLE CLOUD 


round doll face she had had in the days her father 
had been telling about. 

“ It’s the clock come back from being mended. 
You remember, Fred, the hall clock from Leaside.” 
The name dimmed her joy and she swallowed and 
sniffed as she undid the string. She stood the clock 
up on the table and looked at it in silence. Then 
she reached out and patted it gently as though the 
bronze Diana on the top of it had been a living 
being. 

“ Does she go with the place, Fred? ” she asked 
quiveringly. 

“ Not if you want her, Lizzie.” 

“ I—I like her,” she said, and her hand crept 
down and found the chain which regulated the 
strike. She pulled it gently. She laid her finger 
on her lips as the bells rang out. 

“ One, twm, three, four, five, six, seven,” she 
counted. Her eyes took on a tranced look, her 
face grew set and young, neither sane nor mad. 
“ The day is beginning. The long moist shadows 
fall backwards across the lawn and the birds are 
hurrying in and out of the sun. The sea is so 
bright you can’t look at it, and the cliff face, drip¬ 
ping with dew, shines like polished marble. Louisa 
is coming up from the shore with the dogs. There’s 
Comrade, and Dan, and Rory, and little Flicker, 
and old Mate, that none of the others dare tease. 
They’re jumping and rolling and barking. Louisa 
is calling ‘Kooee, Mamma! Come down! ’ ” 

241 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Louisa, watching her, pressed back against the 
mantel and gripped a carved flower with such force 
that the stone bruised her hand. 

Again the bells rang out, while the upheld linger 
counted. 

“ Eight. There’s breakfast on the terrace, where 
the breeze from the sea is cold but the sun is warm 
—Louisa, get my shawl and umbrella.” 

She was like an Ophelia Louisa had seen a little 
while before. The girl was terrified. 

“ There’s a fisherman coming in. A four-master, 
big and stately, with heavy gray sails, rounded and 
steady. It’s tacking to and fro, now near, now 
far, carrying you away on wild dreams of adven¬ 
ture. I—I wish I was a man.” 

Once more the bells rang. 

“ Nine. Come down to the garden, quick, before 
the night scents fade. They sleep in the sunlight. 
It’s the season when you count the rosebuds and 
watch for the foxgloves’ bursting. Come! ” 

She held out a hand to each. Louisa took one 
as though hypnotized. Mr. Lea caught the other 
with all his old vigor and shook it roughly. 

“ Stop it, Lizzie, stop it! For God’s sake! You 
break my heart! ” 

It was at this moment that Lauchlin came to the 
door and announced that: “ Mr. Finley is in the 
front drawing-room to see Miss Louisa.” 

She rose and went. 

She went hesitatingly, dazed by the pain of the 

242 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


scene she had passed out from. Before her eyes 
she still saw her father as he stood by the mantel, 
calling up his strength, striving desperately to con¬ 
trol his mumbling lips while her mother, with her 
head on his shoulder, cried like a child, and the 
joyous Diana smiled uncaringly and chimed her 
silver bells. The change in the girl’s face had never 
been as marked as now. It was now moved, pas¬ 
sionate. Could it ever have been a doll’s face, blank 
and cold and pretty? 

Winton, looking in at her as she paused in the 
doorway, her hands out gripping each a curtain, 
saw that the iron was hot. 

He sprang forward without warning and caught 
her in his arms as she stood there, and kissed her 
and kissed her again. 

She cried out, throwing her arm up protectingly 
before her face. 

Winton drew back. She was beautiful as she 
stared at him with all her seething feeling blazing 
through her face. The flame of her beauty woke in 
Finley’s eyes. Louisa mistook it. 

“ Do you love me like that? ” she asked wonder- 
ingly, letting her arm drop numbly to her side. 

“ Yes.” 

“ I—I never thought before of your really loving 
me. I don’t love you, you know.” 

“ Love will come, Louisa.” 

u Never. It’s gone.” 

“ At nineteen? ” 


243 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ What has age to do with it? ” 

“ Nothing.” He raised her fingers and held them 
between his two hands. “ Won’t you say c yes ’ this 
time, my dear? ” 

“ Then you don’t care about what I have told 
you? ” 

“ I care for you, Louisa.” 

“ Will you help Papa? ” 

“ Yes.” 

She drew her hand away from him, and for a 
moment her eyes struggled right and left like a 
caged bird seeking escape. But there was no escape 
from the vision of the two figures in the library. 

Very low she whispered: “ Yes.” 

Then she turned quickly before he had time to 
move. “ Come,” she said, “ let us tell Papa.” 

She opened the door of the library and told it. 

“ Mamma, Papa, I have accepted Winton Fin- 
ley.” 

Then she shut the door again behind him and 
went up-stairs to her room. 

In her ears rang a twofold cry of joy. 


244 


CHAPTER XXII 


The letter she sent to Freddie, telling her of the 
engagement, was not, Louisa knew, satisfactory. 
But it was one of those letters which refuse to be 
written, which simply will not take form on paper. 
It was her fourth attempt and she could not do 
better. She mailed it and closed her mind to 
thoughts of the answer, which fortunately would 
come in cold black and white, not in burning word 
of mouth. Freddie, up at college, was suffering 
discipline. She had overstepped her allowance of 
cuts and could not come to town for a fortnight. 
She was expected the day of Lois’s dinner, to which 
she had been invited. Until then, she could not tell 
Louisa face to face what she thought of the busi¬ 
ness. Louisa was glad. 

Xot that she regretted what she had done. She 
had her reward. The sun of Indian Summer shone 
upon her father and, like a rose-bush in October, 
he pulled his failing energies together for a late 
blooming. Everything about him seemed to have 
clicked back into place, and he was his old self 
again. The old power, which people had hardly 
begun to miss, but which yet had been missing, 
went now into his negotiations with the Federated 
Rice Companies and in the triumphant brilliancy 
with which he carried them through, his reputation 

245 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


soared higher than ever. His name became a house¬ 
hold word over the land. All that remained of the 
bad times was that Leaside was still for sale, and 
that seemed likely soon to pass. Winton did not 
approve of selling. He said the Pan American fee 
ought to cover the price of the mortgage. It could 
easily be inflated $100,000 over what Mr. Lea pro¬ 
posed to charge. There could be no criticism if 
twice that amount were added. Only Mr. Lea was 
Quixotic. It was unfortunate he used that word. 
It recalled to Mr. Lea maddening memories and 
hardened the point of his stubbornness. He nursed 
his grievance. 

Mrs. Lea agreed with Winton. She rested all 
her anxieties upon her future son-in-law and was 
puzzled that her husband could think of question¬ 
ing his judgment. She used to sit opposite to him 
watching his face through the firelight for signs of 
relenting. 

Winton knew the truth about the mortgage now. 
There was nothing in Lea affairs about which he 
did not know the truth. They were not as satis¬ 
factory to him as they might have been—but he 
knew about the rice negotiations, too.—He had his 
reward. 

And the flame of Louisa’s beauty burned hotter 
behind his eyes. Her beauty was like the sky for 
changeableness, now warm and promising, now 
stormy, full of glowing glory as of sunset at one 
moment, black as night the next. Winton felt none 

246 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

too sure of her. He pressed her to announce the 
engagement. 

Her father, too, was impatient that it should be 
known. It made his old heart quicken and his eyes 
glow to think of it. It may be that he felt warmer 
towards Finley because he was to be Louisa’s hus¬ 
band. It is certain he felt warmer towards Louisa 
because she was to be Finley’s wife. It was she 
who had salvaged success from failure, and made 
whole his wounded pride. His delight was a bene¬ 
diction to her. 

Her mother’s joy was as great. She had forgot¬ 
ten about Johnny. She was a-bubble with blind 
happiness, full of plans and excitement for the 
wedding. She named the bridesmaids and chose 
the dresses. She spent idyllic mornings in the 
shops turning over table linen and trousseau, and 
failed to notice that Louisa let her choose, showing 
no preferences. She redoubled her industry on the 
tapestry so that it might be made into a chair seat 
for the new drawing-room. 

All this was just what Louisa had wanted and 
she felt that indeed she did have her reward. Yet 
she begged for time and would not make the an¬ 
nouncement. The day of Lois’s dinner arrived, and 
Freddie arrived, without her having set a date. 

Winton went early to the Morres house that 
evening. He had become a habitue there, spending 
most of his spare time when he was not in the 
galleried library in University Place in the red 

247 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


library in Seventy-third Street, over which “ The 
Thinker ” presided. The butler let him go up there 
now without the formality of announcement. 

It was a warm night. The windows in the room 
were open and the heavy lace curtains swelled slug¬ 
gishly to and fro. The fire was out in the chimney 
and inside the fender there was a scattering of 
chewed toothpicks. The red-shaded lamp threw a 
hot, uncomfortable light like the glow of a stove on 
the face of his host as Finley entered. 

Mr. Morres did not wear a dress suit well. His 
shirt front bulged when he lounged. He pushed 
it back into place as he rose. His fingers were 
dusty and left marks. 

“Well, Finley, how goes it, old fellow? The 
little one will be down in a few minutes, I guess.” 
He glanced at the clock which was still some min¬ 
utes from the hour. 

“ I ? m early, I know,” said Winton. “ I came 
on purpose to have a few words with you if I 
may.” 

“ Ah.” Mr. Morres cast one of his quick glances 
over him as he dropped back on the sofa. He al¬ 
ways dropped when he sat down. His feet rose 
from the ground with a bounce and he was death 
on springs. It quite irritated Miss Cotenet. It 
gave her so much extra work to do getting them 
mended. Sometimes, when he was in particularly 
good humor, she scolded him about it, jokingly. 
She had dared to do it this afternoon at tea time, 

248 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


and now, after he was down, he raised himself up on 
his arms gently again in belated recollection. 

“ Here I be,” he said, “ ready to be talked to.” 
He had been expecting this for some time. He 
thought he knew what was coming. He was not 
overpleased—not, that is to say, enthusiastic. 

Still, if the girl cared- There were few in the 

world good enough for her.—His reputation was 
good. 

Finley took out his cigarette case and sat down 
with his back to The Thinker, to whose brooding 
visage he had taken a dislike. 

“ I feel very much indebted to you, sir, for that 
Silver Bright stock,” he said. “ It quite put me 
on easy street.” 

“ Fm glad to hear it.” This was not quite the 
opening Mr. Morres had expected. But you never 
can tell how a man will attack the question, 
straight ahead or round about. It made him think 
of the evening he had proposed to the elder Lois. 
How hard the point had been to come at. How 
conscious he had been of his hands. It was a pretty 
tribute to old-fashioned ideas, anyhow, for Finley 
to speak to the parent at all. He was grateful to 
him for it. It showed a more sympathetic under¬ 
standing than he had credited him with. Lois was 
usually sound in her judgments, anyway. 

Thought is rapid. 

“ I may almost say it has been the turning point 
in my career,” Finley was saying. “ It has made 

249 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


all the difference between my being cramped for 
growth and being able to do what I want. That is 
a great thing for an ambitious man” 

“ Great/ 7 agreed Morres. “ Poverty is like soli¬ 
tary confinement, it makes either a fool or a 
genius.” 

Finley laughed. He wished his host would move 
away from under the red light. It made his face 
look hot and moist. Finley was fastidious. He 
hated to let his eyes rest on anything ugly. 

“ I don’t know that I should quite go as far as 
that,” he said. “ But money gives either genius 
or foolishness a chance to develop. And I owe that 
to you. I have wanted right along to tell you that, 
and say that if ever there should be a way in which 
I could show my appreciation by deeds rather than 
words, I wanted to do it.” 

“ Thank you, though there isn’t generally much 
need of thanks. A fellow does what he does be¬ 
cause he wants to, nine times out of ten.” 

It couldn’t be that the man meant to make grati¬ 
tude the introduction to a proposal. Well, for his 
own part he was in no hurry. If it was business— 
a business man should have his eye on the future. 
“ There is nothing you can do for me—at present,” 
he added as an afterthought. 

“ I suppose there isn’t,” admitted Finley, watch¬ 
ing his host’s expression closely. There had been a 
slight change in it before the last sentence. Finley 
tried hard to analyze it. He was playing for high 

250 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


stakes and he let no possible advantage pass. He 
enjoyed tlie game for its own sake but he never 
lost sight of the prize. He was bidding now for the 
father’s friendship. He washed to weld it firm be¬ 
fore the daughter’s anger burst. He could not help 
smiling a little at the thought of Lois. It was 
amusing. “ But you remember the fable of the 
lion and the mouse, don’t you, sir?” he went on. 
“ Sometimes something comes and-” 

“ I will remember.” Morres gave his shoulders 
the slightest hunch. 

They were silent after that for some time. Mr. 
Morres, chewing thoughtfully at his toothpick, 
looked as though he might be silent until doomsday. 
Finley waited till the pause had been long enough 
to disconnect his next remark from what had gone 
before, before speaking again. 

“ By the way, Mr. Morres. Have you ever con¬ 
sidered investing in the Federated Kice Com¬ 
panies? ” 

Mr. Morres grunted. u Guess I’ve lost all I care 
to in rice, thank you.” He threw his toothpick 
down on the hearth to join its mates, and turned 
slowly towards his guest. “ Know anything about 
’em? ” he asked. 

u The stock is rising,” answered Finley. 

“ I saw that in the newspaper. The question is, 
where is it going to? ” 

“ It is going as high as Pan American.” Finley 
stated it positively. 


251 



THE SABLE CLOUD 

Mr. Morres said nothing but his silence was in¬ 
terrogative. 

“ The two will be practically one,” explained 
Finley. 

“ That’s your opinion, is it? ” said Morres. 
“Well, I’ve talked to men down-town who don’t 
agree with you. They say Lea can’t put it through. 
There’ll be an injunction.” 

“ Those men are mistaken. There will be no 
injunction. Confederated Rice will rise as high as 
Pan American. In proof that I know what I am 
talking about, I will tell you that I have sold some 
of my Silver Brights to buy it.” 

“ H’m,” grunted Morres. “ It’s your own affair, 
of course. But Silver Brights aren’t a speculation, 
they’re an investment. Let me tell you that, young 
man.” 

“ Confederated Rice isn’t a speculation either, 
sir. It’s a certainty.” 

Mr. Morres whistled two skeptical notes. 
“ That’s where the speculation comes in,” he re¬ 
marked. 

“ It doesn’t in this case. I know.” 

“ I don’t doubt you think you know, Finley. But 
I don’t believe anybody, not even either of the Com¬ 
pany presidents, knows both sides of the question 
and all its ins and outs except only Lea himself, 
And that’s what you’d have to know, to know any* 
thing at all.” 


252 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 

“ That is just what I do know,” answered Finlev. 
“ All that Lea knows.” 

“ Bribe his secretary?” He said it with his 
hand in his pocket in the act of extracting another 
toothpick, his eyes on the ceiling. 

“ Mr. Morres! ” exclaimed Finley. 

“ That's all right now. Keep your shirt on. 
What I mean is this. If you had gone to Lea and 
said Liv Morres told me, he’d have been justified 
in believing it. But if you come to Liv Morres and 
say Lea told me, he’s not justified in believing it. 
It would show darn poor knowledge of human 
nature if he did. It don’t fit, Finley. It don’t go 
with the man.” 

“ Hot usually, it doesn’t. But this time it’s true, 
sir. Mr. Lea is not the man he used to be. It is 
not generally known, but he has had a stroke. He’s 
all right. But he has lost confidence in himself. 
He feels the need of a young man to advise with 
and consult.” 

“And he has chosen you to fill that capacity, 
hey? ” 

If there was a touch of sarcasm in his tone, Fin¬ 
ley missed it. He was busy thinking. He had 
gone further than he meant. He had not supposed 
it would be hard to convince Morres, or he would 
never have begun. But, being where he was, had 
he not now better go further? It would give him 
the reputation for frankness—and it would draw 
Lois’s sting later, to a considerable extent. 

253 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ You see, sir, I am engaged to Louisa Lea,” he 
said. 

“ What! ” For the second time this announce¬ 
ment brought Morres up short. “ H'mmm! ” he 
growled, slapping at a mosquito -which had come 
in through the window and was buzzing between 
the rival attractions of himself and the lamp. “ I 
suppose I ought to congratulate you. Louisa’s a 
nice little girl, all I’ve ever seen of her. . . . 

Seems to be generally liked. I have a letter to write 
before dinner. If you will excuse me. I think you 
will find my daughter in the parlor.” 

He rose as he spoke and Finley rose also. 
“ This is absolutely confidential, Mr. Morres, of 
course,” he said. “ The engagement is not an¬ 
nounced yet.” 

Mr. Morres was already sitting at the desk. He 
was looking into an open drawer intently and he 
answered by an inarticulate “ H’m! ” only. 

Finley took it to mean acquiescence in confidence 
and left the room. 

Morres slammed the drawer shut without having 
taken anything out of it. He rested his elbows on 
the desk and buried his face in his hands. But he 
sat thus in deep thought for only a very little 
while. He would hardly have had time to write 
the shortest note, before he rose and followed Fin¬ 
ley down-stairs. 


254 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Lois had a voice of considerable beauty. It did 
not, indeed, go so far that if she had been a poor 
girl it would have been thought sufficient to stake 
her fortune and future upon. But it had been 
trained till, as far as it went, it was a perfect in¬ 
strument upon which she played with exquisite art. 
It lacked a certain quality, however. It could chal¬ 
lenge but it could not soften. The song she was 
singing as Winton came into the drawing-room 
fitted it to perfection. 

“ L’cimour c’est un enfant Boheme - ” 

She looked the part of Carmen with her dress 
cut low on the back and sides, held up in front 
by a string of beads only, that sagged and slid as 
she moved. When she stood still and upright, her 
skirt covered her knees, but when she walked or 
swayed it discovered satin garters with golden 
clasps and little dangling ermine tails. She 
pirouetted on her toes when she heard Winton com¬ 
ing, and danced towards him. 

“ Qui n’a jamais, jamais, connn de loi! ” she 
sang. 

Close to him, and away again with provocative 
eyes over her shoulder. 


255 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Si ta ne m’aime pas je t’aime ” 

Swaying back and forth with her hands on her 
hips, her high heels tapping out the rhythm. 

“ Et si je Caime - ” 

On the stage she would have attracted crowds. 
Miss Cotenet turned her head to smile upon her 
with uncertain pride while she swung out the ac¬ 
companiment with quick mechanical fingers. 

“ Prend garde a toil—Prend garde a toi! ” 

She swayed forward at the last word, caught 
Finley-s face between her hands and brushed it 
with a kiss. 

Miss Cotenet’s hands fell from the piano. 
“ Lois! ” she exclaimed. “ Good gracious, Lois! ” 

Lois was quick but Finley was quicker. He 
caught her wrists before she could get her hands 
away, and he held them pressed against his shoul¬ 
ders, bending her arms and forcing her towards 
him. 

She was panting a little and laughing, looking 
up at him with mocking eyes as she pretended to 
hold back. Suddenly, like a flower stalk breaking 
she gave way and let herself sway fonvard, her 
weight against him, her head in the crook of his 
neck. 

Mr. Morres, who had followed so closely after 
his guest, stopped in the doorway as though he had 
hit a physical barrier. He drew back quickly out 
of sight behind the portiere. But over the shoul¬ 
ders of the young people his eyes had met Miss 

256 



THE SABLE CLOUD 

Cotenet’s eyes full of horror, of amazement and of 
sympathy. 

Puffs of fresh air blowing through the rooms 
showed that the front door was opening at quick 
intervals. Eight o’clock was striking on the crystal 
clock, and the incongruous little air from Faust 
was chiming through the house. The guests were 
arriving. 

Mr. Morres came into the room. His face wore 
an expression his office knew better than his home, 
thin-lipped and stern. Only Miss Cotenet noticed 
it. Finley turned to greet that lady as though she 
too had just come into the room. As a matter, of 
fact, he hardly knew whether she had or not. He 
had not noticed her. He took her at Lois’s valua¬ 
tion. 

Zaidee Brown and Bobby White arrived together. 
Louisa and Freddie came close behind them. In 
the hall they met Johnny face to face. It was the 
first time Louisa had seen him since her engage¬ 
ment. She felt her breath catch sharply and the 
blood mount high as he stood aside to let her by, 
and she passed him with a formal “ Good-evening.” 

Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes shining 
as she came into the drawing-room. Winton 
thought he had never seen her look so well. He 
stepped forward where he would be beside her when 
she turned from making her greetings. 

Miss Cotenet was saying “ How do you do? ” to 
everyone in a dead, dazed voice. Lois’s voice was 

257 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


brittle and gay, Mr. Morres’s like a growl of a 
wounded animal. He paused for a moment in 
greeting Louisa, bolding her hand in his. He 
glanced over her head at Johnny standing in the 
doorway, with all his soul longing and burning in 
his eyes. 

Piebald Liv hesitated a moment, as one might 
hesitate doubting whether mercy lay in giving or 
withholding the coup cle grace. 

“ My dear,” he said, “ I hear you are to be con¬ 
gratulated. Will you let an old man kiss you on 
this auspicious occasion? You won’t be jealous 
. . . eh, Finley? ” 

But he made no move to kiss her. He looked 
again over her head at Johnny, and then at his 
daughter, whose eyes had narrowed and whose 
hands had clenched so the knuckles of her fingers 
were white. 

Louisa swung around. “Winton!” she ex¬ 
claimed. There was anger in her voice, but she 
checked it instantly. 

“ How could you go and tell? ” she asked banter- 
ingly. “ That was my prerogative.” 

“But you refused to exercise it,” he reminded 
her. 

She smiled and managed to laugh. But she was 
not listening to what he said. She was conscious 
only of Johnny looking at her, and of the need of 
self-control. She had not realized it would be as 
hard as this. 


258 


THE 8ABLE CLOUD 


Everybody was crowding around ber. Tli£ girls 
wanted to see ber ring. She bad it on a chain 
around ber neck—Mamma said that was tbe proper 
place for an engagement ring before tbe announce¬ 
ment—and sbe took it off and passed it around. 
When it bad made tbe circle and come back, Win- 
ton raised ber hand and kissed it, slipping the 
circle on ber finger. 

“At last, you wear it openly and for always,” 
be said. 

The girls all thought with vague envy that it 
must be wonderful to have a man like him look 
at you like that. But Louisa did not see him. Sbe 
looked at everyone in tbe room but Johnny and 
saw only him. Sbe broke away and sought refuge 
with Bobby White. 

“ I hope you will be happy, Louisa,” be said. 

“ Thank you, Bob.” 

“ I suppose I ought not to be surprised. Every¬ 
body has known be was attentive to you, but 
somehow I never thought of your caring for 
Finley. Noel and I always thought it was 
Johnny.” 

“ You never can tell how things are going to 
turn out, Bobby.” 

“No, you can’t. Noel would be very happy 
about it.” 

“ I wonder,” said Louisa softly, thinking of her 
friend. But she knew instantly that she should 
not have said it. Bobby’s eyes were puzzled. 

259 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“Anything that made you happy, made Noel 
happy. You know that, Louisa.” 

“ Yes, I do know. Oh, dear Noel! I wonder 
what life is for, anyway. What is the use of it all, 
Bobhy? ” 

“ I’ve wondered a lot about that lately, myself, 
Louisa. It isn’t much fun, life. And if it isn’t any 
use—why, what is the use? I’m lonely. Why 
shouldn’t I go join Noel? ” 

Louisa turned on him fiercely. “ Bobby, don’t 
say such things! Don’t.” 

He laughed. “ Perhaps life is fun for you with 

Finley and all, but-” 

“Stop, Bobby, stop it! You don’t know what 
you’re doing! Oh, it isn’t fun! ” 

The panic in her voice brought him up short. 
The expression in her eyes frightened him. 

“ It’s all right, there is a use, of course,” he said, 
soothingly. “ It’s a school, old girl, that’s what I 
tell myself. We’ve got to stay till we graduate. 
Some of us are apt pupils and go soon, like Noel. 
Some take a longer time, and a good many of us— 

I guess—fail. It-” 

“ Louisa! ” 

Johnny’s voice said it close beside her. 

Her talk with Bobby had put her off her guard. 
She looked up and her soul was in her eyes. 

The rest of the party had broken up into groups 
of twos and threes. Only Freddie was entirely 
alone. She had drawn back into the dimly lighted 

260 





TEE SABLE CLOUD 


corner between the door and the mantel, where, in 
a dusky dress, she was unnoticed and forgotten. 
Her host and Miss Cotenet, standing in front of the 
fireplace, cut her partially off from the rest of the 
room, but she could see between them, across to 
the opposite corner where her cousin sat. 

Mr. Morres was neglecting his duty as host. 
With his hands clasped behind his back, he stood 
silent and motionless except for his jaws which 
chewed savagely at his toothpick and for his eyes 
which roved restlessly from group to group, rest¬ 
ing for an instant on Louisa, but for a longer space 
on his daughter, who sat talking to Finley. Lois 
was sheltering behind laughter and her eyes 
were bright and scintillating as they darted 
here and there, everywhere, and always back to 
Louisa. 

Miss Cotenet also was neglecting her duties. She 
was too upset to talk, and, impelled by an impulse 
to which she yielded without trying to analyze it, 
she had sought refuge beside Mr. Morres. But she 
did not dare interrupt his silence. She simply 
stood beside him quietly, the way a little tug lies 
quiet under the lee of a big ship. Her eyes were 
down on the ground. She did not care to look at 
Lois. She did not know that Freddie was behind 
her, and the girl’s voice, sudden and sharp, was 
startling. 

“ It’s a darn shame! ” it said. “ It’s a crime. 
That’s what it is.” 


261 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

This was at the instant when Louisa lifted her 
face to Johnny. 

Mr. Morres turned his head slowly, his eyes lin¬ 
gering. 

“ So that’s the way you feel about it, is it, Miss 
Freddie? ” 

Freddie came forward out of the shadows. She 
stuck her chin out a little and her eyes were stub¬ 
born. 

“ I was talking to myself,” she said. 

Mr. Morres bowed with the flicker of a smile at 
his mouth. “ I stand rebuked,” he said. “ Never¬ 
theless, I agree with you.” He caught her eyes and 
held them. “ I wish there was something I could 
do about it.” 

Freddie dropped her mask. “ Oh, I wish there 
was! If only you could think of something.” 

Dinner had been announced and Bobby was bow¬ 
ing to her. 

“ I believe I am to have the pleasure of taking 
you in, Freddie,” he was saying. 

It was Winton who had sought out Lois when 
Louisa sat down with Bobby White. “ Aren’t you 
going to congratulate me? ” he asked. 

Her fingers were playing with the string of beads 
that held her dress in place as though they might 
break it. 

“ I am not sure that it is a case for congratula¬ 
tions,” she answered. 

“ But please do,” he urged. u You have been 

262 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


such a help to me, that really you must. Why, it 
was you who advised me to buy the puppy and told 
me when to send flowers. How would I ever have 
gotten on without your coaching? ” 

“ How will you ever get on without it now? ” 

“ Why should I get on 'without it? We’re still 
friends, aren’t we? ” 

“ Certainly friends—but—I shan’t have experi¬ 
ence to guide you beyond this, you know.” 

He laughed. “ You’re great, Lois. You’ll get 
the experience quick enough, my dear. You’ll have 
half a dozen husbands before you’re through. You 
can afford them. While I, poor devil of a politi¬ 
cian, dare only afford one wife. That’s one reason 
why I chose Louisa, you know. She’ll stay mar¬ 
ried.” 

“ So will any woman as long as she is happy.” 
Lois’s voice lost for a moment the laughter. “ And 
no woman will longer than that, nowadays, unless 
she’s a fool.” She laid her hand on his arm with 
a sudden grip, nodding to where Johnny’s head 
bent low and Louisa’s face was lifted. “ But of 
course you will make Louisa happy, Win dear. 
There’s no doubt about that, is there? ” The laugh¬ 
ter came back to her voice, hard and mocking. She 
knew she had scored a point. 

Dinner was announced and she rose. 

Johnny had had time for only a few words. 

“ Louisa,” he said. And then, when her eyes had 
risen and met his, again: “ Louisa.” 

263 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Johnny, go away! ” Her voice was a whisper, 
a tremble in the air. 

Bobby White drew quietly aside. 

“ No, I must speak to you.” 

“ Not here. Not now. I can’t.” 

“ Where, then? men? ” 

“ To-morrow—somewhere. No, not to-morrow. 
I don’t know. Oh, I can’t, Johnny.” 

“ Now, it must be, then, and here.” 

“No, no, it mustn’t. Another time. I will let 
you know.” 

“ Promise me—or it shall be now.” 

“ I promise. Go away, Johnny.” 

Lois came swinging by on her way to the dining¬ 
room. She paused by Louisa for an instant, lean¬ 
ing towards her with a laugh. 

“ Aren’t you brave! ” she exclaimed, and went 
on on her partner’s arm, humming an air from 
Carmen. 


264 



CHAPTER XXIV 


“ Come up-stairs, Lois.” 

Lois yawned, with her hands clasped behind her 
neck, her head thrown back. 

“ Ah-hh, Pm tired,” she answered. “ I ? m going 
right up to bed.” 

“ You’re coming into the library.” Her father 
paused on the stairs to look down at her. She was 
quite beautiful as she stood below him, beautiful 
with the beauty of overemphasized femininity, 
smooth-skinned, firm and glossy-fleshed, like ivory 
if ivory could have the pulse and glow of life. He 
frowned. 

She let her arms drop, turning her hands up at 
the wrist and stretching. 

“ I’m too sleepy to talk to-night.” 

“ You will do as I say!” His fist came down 
crash on the plush-covered banisters. 

Only once before had Lois heard that tone in 
her father’s voice or seen that look on his face. It 
was in the interregnum after her mother had died, 
before Miss Cotenet had been discovered. He had 
found her bouncing a Persian kitten up and down 
on a hot stove. It was a beautiful little cat, golden 
coated. Its fur stood out with pain and terror, 

265 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


each hair on end, electricity spariding and crack¬ 
ling delightfully under the play of her fingers. She 
had an elastic around its nose so it should not make 
ugly noises. Lois was sensitive to jarring notes. 
Her father looked now as he had looked that day. 
She hunched her shoulders with a little shiver, 
looking around to see if the front door was shut. 

“ The Sultan speaks,” she said mockingly, as she 
put her foot on the first step. 

Miss Cotenet had never, even once, seen Mr. 
Morres in such a temper. Her heart beat rapidly. 
It beat so the pound of it seemed to shake her. 
Sometimes when she was excited she really thought 
there must be something wrong with her heart. 
She had often told her sister Letitia so, but no 
doctor could discover anything. She crept up the 
stairs after the father and daughter, very quietly, 
trying to make herself small, hoping to be forgot¬ 
ten. 

But Mr. Morres, standing aside to let Lois pass 
ahead of him into the library, waited for her. 

“You too, Johanna.” He said it sternly, very 
sternly, but he said “ Johanna.” 

Miss Cotenet’s heart gave an extra leap and she 
cast a surreptitious glance up into his face as she 
slipped by him. But he was not even thinking of 
her. He was looking across the room at his daugh¬ 
ter. 

Lois had perched herself on the pedestal of “ The 
Thinker ” in front of his drawn-back toes. Her 

266 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


feet liung free from the ground and her heels kicked 
the side of her seat. The golden clasped garters 
and little dangling ermine tails were very much in 
evidence, with above them a strip of skin as white 
as her shoulder. The brooding face of the statue, 
holding darkness, hung over her gay light head in 
startling contrast. She reached for a cigarette 
on the mantel and struck a match. 

“ Put that out! ” Her father’s voice was com¬ 
manding. It admitted no hesitation. 

Lois raised her eyebrows at him over the tiny 
flame, and drew in her breath defiantly. 

He crossed the room with wide strides, caught 
the cigarette from her mouth and threw it into the 
fire, threw her hand also, so that it twisted her 
wrist and made her wince. 

She slipped from the pedestal and stood up. She 
tried to make her eyes blaze into his, but they 
quivered. 

“ Sit down,” he ordered, and when she hesitated, 
took her by the shoulder and threw her onto the 
sofa. Piebald Liv was reverting. The corners 
were breaking through the polish he had acquired 
at that hard school of the aristocrats. After all, 
it had been only a glaze. 

Miss Cotenet, over by the door, actually trem¬ 
bled. 

His glance fell upon her. 

“ Come over here and sit down, you.” She came 
quickly. 


267 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

He picked up a shawl and tossed it towards his 
daughter. 

“ Cover yourself up,” he ordered. 

She did it, hiding her pretty bare knees. 

He flung the box of cigarettes into the fire. 

“No more of these, Miss Cotenet, you hear? 
Lois is not to have any more cigarettes.” 

He swung towards her and Miss Cotenet said 
“Yes” with a gasp, not even wondering how she 
was to be prevented from having them. 

Lois threw aside the shawl and began to whistle, 
swinging her feet. 

“ Uamour c’est un enfant Boheme ” 

The tune maddened him. 

“ You—you hussy! ” he shouted. “ To think you 
are my daughter.” 

Lois sprang to her feet. “ MTiat have I done? ” 
she demanded. 

“ Done! ” he repeated. He caught his breath in, 
like a growling dog. “ You dare stand before me 
like that and ask me what you have done! Look 
at the way you’re dressed—like a savage, worse 
than a savage. She, poor devil, doesn’t know she’s 
half naked, and you do know and you rejoice. You 
dare ask me what you have done when you dance 
before a man as you danced before Finley, let him 
kiss you, handle you like—hrr! my daughter! You 
wanted him for a husband. He’d no more marry 
you than he’d marry a woman from the streets. 
Go up-stairs. Get out of my sight! ” 

268 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


Lois turned. She was meek enough now. 

“ Stop! ” 

She stood still. 

“ Hear my orders. I don’t care to see you again. 
You will stay in your room in the morning till I 
have left the house. You will return to it before I 
get home. You will buy yourself a complete new 
wardrobe—rather Miss Cotenet will buy it for you. 
You will wear high collars and long sleeves, and 
skirts to your ankles. As soon as you have pro¬ 
cured it you will go to the country. You will live 
in a small cottage and do your own work. 
You-” 

“ I won't! ” Lois’s defiance was somewhat quav¬ 
ering in spite of her. 

“ Don’t interrupt. As long as you live on my 
money you will live as I say. Your allowance is 
stopped. Miss Cotenet, you will calculate how 
much you need to live as I have outlined and the 
amount will be paid to you monthly. You will see 
to it that my daughter has no money whatever in 
her possession. If you wish to become independent 
and earn your own living, Lois, I will procure for 
you the best instruction possible in whatever line 
you wish to pursue. I will do my utmost to make 
any honest effort successful. In the meanwhile you 
will live where and how I say. When Miss Cotenet 
advises me that you have come to your senses, you 
can return. ]STow go.” 

She went. 


269 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


Miss Cotenet was not sure whether she, too, was 
meant to go. She lingered hesitatingly by the door 
watching Lois mount the stairs. 

Lois drooped. The crispness seemed gone out of 
her very chiffons. But, looking down, she caught 
her governess’s eye with a glance that was fright¬ 
ening. 

Miss Cotenet looked back into the room over her 
shoulder. Mr. Morres had dropped on the sofa 
and sat huddled like an old man. His face was out 
of sight in his hands. His shoulders quivered. 

She tiptoed towards the door. The floor creaked 
under her steps. 

Mr. Morres raised his head. “ Who’s that? ” 

“ It’s I.” She came timidly back. She wanted 
to come, yet she was frightened. She was fright¬ 
ened of the father down-stairs and of the daughter 
up-stairs. 

He leaned back wearily, looking at her. “We 
have failed, Johanna,” he said. 

Once more, Johanna! 

u Don’t take it so hard,” she said. “We must 
make allowances for the generation. Lois is a dear 

child. She may play at—at-” Miss Cotenet 

was at a loss for a word. “ But she would never 
do anything wrong. She thinks this sort of thing 
looks smart. It is a passing phase.” 

(Would he say “Johanna” again?) 

He was not to be comforted so easily. 

“ I would not have believed it if I had not seen 

270 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


it with my own eyes. If you, even, had told me, 
Johanna, I would not have believed it.” (He did 
say it again.) “ That he should dare kiss her like 

that, laugh at her like that, with no more respect 
than if she were a demi-monde. And why should 
he have respect, the way she behaves? Hrr!—I 
would not have believed it. My daughter! ” 

Miss Cotenet was close behind him, almost lean¬ 
ing over him. Her hand lay on the arm of the 
sofa. He put his out and covered it. She did not 
move. She began to cry, softly. 

“ I’m sure I’ve always done the best I could for 
Lois! ” 

“ I know you have, Johanna.” He pressed her 
fingers and then withdrew his hand. 

He was silent after that for so long that she 
began to wonder again whether she ought to go 
away. Her hand hung by her side, limp, still con¬ 
scious of the touch of his. 

She moved, and he wakened from his reverie. 
He got to his feet and bowed to her formally. u I 
beg your pardon, Miss Cotenet. I forgot myself. 
I have no right to call you by your first name.” 

“ You may if you want to,” she whispered. 

“ Please sit down.” 

She sank into the corner of the sofa where he 
had been, and reached out her hand to the place 
beside her. u You, too,” she said. "When he was 
sat, she let her hand lie where it was close beside 

him. 


271 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ You are a great comfort to me, Johanna,” he 
said. 

“ I want to be,” she answered, and her hand 
stirred so it drew attention to itself. His fingers 
closed upon it once more. They were like Darby 
and Joan after that, sitting side by side in si¬ 
lence. 

He moved at last. “ How still the house seems, 
I—I used to think the house would be lonely when 
Lois married and moved away. She used to tell me 
it would be. But it is worse to have her up-stairs 
like this. It is a loneliness of spirit.” 

“ I—I have known loneliness of spirit,” whis¬ 
pered Miss Cotenet. 

“ You need never know it again, Johanna,” he 
said. 

Again there was a pause and he broke it. 

“ Lois asked me once whether all fathers loved 
their daughters as much as I loved her. I don’t 
believe they do.” 

“ No. No.” If he had said the reverse, Miss 
Cotenet would have agreed with him. Her mind 
was all on the sofa (her sofa!) sitting beside Mr. 
Morres. 

“ ILrr! The cur. I wonder whether Lea realizes 
what he is selling his daughter to. I don’t believe 
he does.” 

“ No. No.” 

“ Poor young Kocoft.” 

“ Poor boy! ” Miss Cotenet played echo. 

272 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


u Freddie Carroll is the only one with sense in 
the bunch. I wish 1 could help them.” 

Miss Cotenet roused herself. “ I believe you 
wish you could help all the world, Livingstone.” 
(How bold she felt, saying “ Livingstone.”) “ You 
have the sweetest disposition of any man I ever 
met.” 

The clock struck one and she had a sudden access 
of discretion. It would never do to sit alone with 
one’s employer at such hours. She rose hastily. 

“ I must go up now.” 

He raised her fingers and kissed them. “ Good 
night, Johanna. And God bless you.” 


273 


CHAPTER XXV 


Louisa refused to talk going home in the motor. 

“ Don’t, don’t, don’t! ” she cried, pounding on 
Freddie’s knee. “ Let me alone to-night. I’ll be 
all right to-morrow.” 

Freddie was almost frightened by her intensity. 
She leaned back in the car and took furtive glances 
at Louisa’s face as they passed under street lights. 
Louisa’s face was hard and motionless and expres¬ 
sionless as though her soul had withdrawn to secret 
places of suffering. 

She said “ Good-night ” in a dull voice in the hall 
when they reached home. “ You go on up, Freddie. 
I’ll tell Mamma we’re back.” 

Mrs. Lea always sat up for her daughter. A 
maid went to fetch her and brought her home in a 
car driven by an old chauffeur who had been with 
them forty years—as coachman twenty—but that 
did not satisfy her mother. She sat up always to 
make sure Louisa got safe home. She might as well 
sit up, she could not sleep, anyhow, till she knew 
her daughter was up-stairs, snug in her room. She 
sat in the library and drowsed over her tapestry 
with all the top lights out and the low ones making 

274 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


only little islands of dimness in the huge dark 
room. As a rule Mr. Lea went to bed at his usual 
hour. But this evening he had fallen asleep on the 
sofa beside his wife, and as sleep was a much sought 
visitor since his illness, she had not disturbed him 
when the chimes in the tower up at Twenty-third 
Street struck ten. 

The sound of the chimes seemed very near and 
clear ringing down the wide-mouthed chimney 
where no fire burned to make an up draft. The 
room seemed more silent than ever after the cheery 
sound of them. The far-off muffled hum of city 
noises, telling of activities in which she had no 
part, only intensified the stillness. . . . Mrs. 

Lea sighed, thinking what a pity it was the chimes 
were not allowed to ring all night. It would have 
been something to look forward to in the dark, 
the next peal of them. They were so companion¬ 
able. Her husband’s snore close beside her was not 
companionable this evening, because he had not 
been companionable before he went to sleep and he 
would not be companionable if he should wake up 
again. He had sat opposite to her after dinner 
reading a book, his eyes out of reach down among 
its pages when she tried to catch them and make 
him talk. Then there had been a slight sound in 
the room—the scratch, now and then, of a turning 
page against his waistcoat, but it had not lessened 
the loneliness. She had wanted very much to talk. 

She sighed. The evenings were not usually like 

275 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


this. Usually she had happy thoughts as she 
stitched her tapestry. Happy thoughts of Louisa’s 
brilliant future as the wife of a “ coming man/’ of 
the beautiful home he would make for her, of all 
the lovely things in boxes up-stairs waiting for her. 
To-night her thoughts were miserable because 
Freddie had come and spoiled them all. Freddie 
had only been in the house fifteen minutes before it 
was time for her to go up-stairs and dress for din¬ 
ner, but in that short space she had managed to 
spoil everything. It was ridiculous the way 
Freddie talked, upsetting everything when every¬ 
one was happy. Of course Louisa was happy. She 
swallowed, so as not to sob. She wished Louisa 
would come home, so she could look in her face and 
make sure she was happy. Papa said she was 
happy and of course she was. She wished she 
would come. 

When she did come, Mamma said: “ Hush, dear, 
don’t wake Papa.” And Louisa stopped in the 
doorway. 

But either she had made a little noise in spite of 
the warning, or his sleep was naturally slept out. 
He woke with a cough, ruffle-haired and angry. 

“ What’s that! what’s that! Oh—I guess I must 
have been asleep.” 

“ Yes, dear, a nice long sleep.” 

“ Louisa, can’t you come in more quietly? You 
waked me and I might have slept all night.” 

“ Em sorry, Papa.” But she did not sound 

276 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


sorry. She, too, sounded angry. Her mind had 
been busy in the motor driving home. “ But Pm 
glad you’re awake, just the same. Winton an¬ 
nounced our engagement, right out to that whole 
party. He did, and he had no right to, no right at 
all. I won’t stand it.” She jerked her ring from 
her finger and threw it down on the table. 

“ What’s that? What’s that? ” demanded Mr. 
Lea again. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa 
now, with his hands on his knees, yawning. 

Mrs. Lea said: “Why, the idea,” and put her 
tapestry down carefully on her work table. 

“ I’ve told you.” Louisa was not her even voiced 
self. “ I’ve told you! Winton announced the 
engagement, and he had no right to till I told him 
he might. If he does things like that I won’t 
marry him! ” 

Mr. Lea moved to his accustomed stand in front 
of the fireplace. 

“ Calm yourself, Louisa,” he said. “ You are not 
talking rationally.” 

“ Yes I am.” 

“ Tell us over again, dear,” begged Mamma. 
“ Winton announced the engagement? ” 

“ Yes, he did. At least Mr. Morres did. Winton 
had told him. I won’t stand it.” Louisa gave the 
ring on the table in front of her a flip with her 
finger. 

Mrs. Lea said: “ Why, the very idea. How could 
Winton? ” Her mind was confusion. If Freddie 

277 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


was right- But if Winton went out of the fam¬ 
ily again-! “ The very idea! ” she repeated, 

and then, as though the very idea had struck her, 
she cheered up and added: “ He loves my little girl 
so. Men are very impatient, darling, when they are 
going to marry such a sweetheart as Louisa. And 
you have kept him waiting a long time. We must 
make allowances.” 

“ Confound impertinence! ” exclaimed Mr. Lea. 
He was in the mood to contradict anything his wife 
said. “ If Louisa chose to keep him waiting ten 
years he had no right to speak of the engagement till 
she permits it. He feels his importance since he has 
become engaged to my daughter, and I have 
done him the compliment to consult with him 
on business matters—pretend to consult him, 
that is. I have noticed he was getting a swelled 
head.” 

“ Then—then I don’t need to marry him? ” asked 
Louisa. 

Papa said: “ We will see,” and never realized the 
frame and import of her question nor the assump¬ 
tion of his answer. “Go up-stairs to bed, now,” 
he added. “And take your ring.” 

Before her slow fingers could close on it, 
Freddie’s voice, up in the dark of the gallery, cried: 
“ Don’t! ” And like a whirlwind Freddie came 
down the stairs. She came like a tomboy, but she 
did not look like one. She w T as an earnest woman, 
deeply moved. 


278 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


u Uncle Fred, please.” She came towards him 
with both hands outstretched. “ Don’t force 
Louisa into this.” 

“ Force Louisa? ” he repeated, opening his eyes 
wide. 

“ Yes, force her. Don’t you see what she is do¬ 
ing, Uncle? Don’t you see how she is suffering? 
She is sacrificing herself for you. Don’t let her. 
She loves John Rocoft.” 

If she had made any impression upon him, and 
his face looked for a moment as though she had, the 
name dissipated it. 

“Mind your own affairs, Frederica,” he said. 
“ Louisa is her own mistress and making her own 
choice with absolute free will. Nobody is forcing 
her. You want to marry Winton, don’t you, 
Louisa? ” 

“ I- He ought not to have announced the 

engagement.” 

“ Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill,” he 
advised. “ Winton has very close business connec¬ 
tions with Mr. Morres. I know, as perhaps you 
wdthout my experience fail to realize, that out of 
such a connection the necessity might easily arise 
for telling him. Doubtless he did *so in strictest 
confidence. And—Morres is a good fellow—but 

not quite- He probably thought it would look 

smart and as though he knew us intimately to tell 
it. You will find Winton is just as angry as we 
are, moro so. Take up your ring, Louisa.” 

279 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


“And think, dear, liow he loves you,” added 
Mamma. 

“ Loves her! ” exclaimed Freddie. “Ye gods, 
you’re a blind set! Don’t you know he’s flirting 
with Lois Morres, and is going to keep right on 
flirting with her? ” 

Trouble puckered Mrs. Lea’s forehead. “Dear 
me, Freddie, you do have such ideas! You quite 
take the joy out of life—you do.” She said it as 
though it were an accusation. 

“ And what’s more,” continued Freddie, “ I’ll tell 
you why he announced the engagement; he did it 
to force Louisa’s hand. He wants to marry her 
because—I’ll be jiggered if I know just why he 
does want to marry her; he doesn’t love her, but 
he knows darned well she doesn’t want to marry 
him, so he told because it’s ten times as hard to 
break an engagement after it’s announced. Aunt 
Lea! ” 

Aunt Lea said: “ Oh, dear me! ” 

Her husband was looking frightfully angry. His 
face was red. It was swollen. “ Oh, dear me! ” 
she repeated. “We mustn’t excite Papa like this, 
it is so bad for him! ” 

He dropped into a chair. “My head aches. 
Louisa, once and for all, do you wish to marry 
Winton Finley, or do you not? I won’t have any 
more shillyshallying.” 

Once more Mamma warned: “ Don’t excite Papa, 
dear.” 


280 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


And Louisa said: “ Yes, Papa, certainly.” 

She slipped quickly out of the room after that 
and went up-stairs. Freddie followed her, paus¬ 
ing only to say over her shoulder as she closed the 
door: 

“ Ye gods, you give me the pip, you do.” 

She sat down on the sofa while Louisa stood in 
front of her bureau. 

“ Say, Louisa. Johnny told me you had prom¬ 
ised to see him. When will it be, to-morrow? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Better make it to-morrow.” 

“ I can’t. Oh, Freddie, don’t you see I can’t? ” 

Louisa turned and came towards her cousin. 
For a moment Freddie thought she was going to 
soften as she had never softened yet. She had great 
hopes. But at that instant Mamma came into the 
room and interrupted. Louisa turned back to the 
bureau. 

Mrs. Lea crossed the room quickly and put her 
arms around her daughter’s neck. 

“ My little girl! Mamma does so want you to be 
happy.” 

Louisa said: “ Of course you do, dear. But I’m 
so tired. Would you mind leaving me alone—you 
and Freddie? ” 

Out in the hall, Freddie said: “Do you really 
want Louisa to be happy, Aunt Lea? ” 

Mrs. Lea was indignant. “ Why, the idea, Fred¬ 
die! How dare you ask me such a question! I 

281 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


have given my whole life to making Louisa happy. 
I wish you would not keep stirring up the waters 
like this. Your uncle knows what’s best.” 

Freddie looked at her silently for a moment. 
61 Well,” she said with a shrug. “ Good-night.— 
Yet I really do think you want Louisa to be happy.” 


\ 


282 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Mr. Lea’s secretary, next morning, was kept busy 
opening and shutting his window. He was cold 
when it was open and the air blew in fresh from 
the harbor. He was hot when it was shut and 
there was no air at all. He dictated letters and 
changed his mind half-way through a sentence, be¬ 
gan again and changed it again. Then he was 
angry when, out of the hodge podge, the secretary 
could make no sense. He felt dragged—after 
Louisa’s absurd scenes and the sleepless night they 
had given him—and since his illness, depression of 
spirits went with weariness of body. 

He was glad of one thing at least—that the en¬ 
gagement was announced. The sooner the wedding 
took place, the better. Girls were always full of 
whims and tantrums, hot and cold, and uncertain 
of their own minds when they were engaged. She 
would settle down after she was actually married. 
When Louisa was married! What a load it would 
be off his mind! 

He forgot the letter he was dictating and swung 
his chair round so he could see out of the window. 
Between the tall buildings a narrow strip of the 
bay was visible, a shining lane of water over which 
never ending streams of boats crisscrossed in every 

283 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


direction, hardly discernible at this hour in the 
dazzle of the sun. Mr. Lea would, if he had had 
to, have paid double the rent of his office for that 
glimpse of freedom. 

When Louisa was married he would shut up 
shop, and he and Lizzie would go away together, 
somewhere where it was quiet and he could rest. 
He would have a free mind then, with Winton look¬ 
ing after the child. 

He wished people would be more careful in liv¬ 
ing up to their standards. Probably he was over¬ 
particular. One must make allowances for the 
generation. When he was young, standards were 
fixed, the things a gentleman did and the things 
a gentleman didn’t were separated by a cast iron 
convention, no one thought of overstepping it— 

but now- Take a little thing like dogs; then a 

gentleman never sold a dog, now they all did. It 
was like taking the buoys from a harbor—breaking 
down the conventions. You could not tell where 
you stood. 

Suddenly under his breath he said: “ Confound 
impertinence! ” and then, hurriedly as though not 
willing to admit to himself that he had said it, he 
turned to his secretary. 

“ Where was I? To Mr. de la Pin- Read 

what you have written.” 

But before she was through he had swung back 
again and was staring out of the window. He felt 
very much tempted to call up Finley, have him to 

284 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


lunch and ask him whether he wasn’t right in sup¬ 
posing Morres had forced his hand. He had half 
a mind to do it. It is always best to clear things 
up. Before he had a whole mind in any direction, 
Mr. Morres himself was announced. 

The secretary sighed with relief and hurried 
away. 

Mr. Morres brought heartiness with him. It 
rang in his deep voice, and was firm in the clasp 
of his big hand. 

He dropped into a chair without waiting to be 
asked. 

u Are you busy, or can you give me a few min¬ 
utes? ” 

“ All the time you like.” Lea was as relieved as 
his secretary by the interruption. He was wonder¬ 
ing whether in any possible way he could get the 
information he wanted from Morres without ap¬ 
pearing to want it. He would be glad not to have 
to speak to Winton about it. 

“ Good,” said Morres, settling back comfortably. 
u I want to ask you something about the Confed¬ 
erated Rice Companies.” 

Mr. Lea’s eyes closed a little tighter than usual. 
He said nothing. 

Mr. Morres was watching the highlight on the 
toe of his shoe move up and down as he twisted 
his foot at the ankle. 

“ What I want to know is this. In your opinion 
would it be wiser for me to put money in them 

285 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 

at present prices or to stick to the Pan Ameri¬ 
can? ” 

“ In my opinion,” answered Mr. Lea, “ it would 
be wiser for you to discuss the matter with a stock¬ 
broker. I believe they develop a sort of instinct 
for what is going up and what is going down. 
You’re in the business yourself. You must have 
the faculty.” 

“ H’m! ” Mr. Morres tipped his chair back so 
he could more easily get at the pocket where the 
toothpicks were. “ I don’t put much faith in in¬ 
stinct, myself. I believe in knowledge.” Mr. Lea 
said nothing, so he went on again. “ Confederated 
stock has been going up very fast lately.” 

Mr. Lea nodded. He had his hands in front of 
his face, finger tip to finger tip. “ People seem to 
be betting on the consolidation going through,” he 
said. 

“ It’s a good bet, isn’t it? ” Mr. Morres raised 
his head quickly. 

Lea let his hands drop and leaned across the 
table towards him. 

“ Look here, Morres. If you came here with any 
idea that you could learn rice plans from me, I am 
sorry I can’t oblige you.” 

He was thinking that behind all this somewhere 
lay the mortgage. He had always felt there was a 
motive for the man taking it. The screw was to be 
turned now. His back stiffened. It was little short 
of a hold-up, coming and demanding information 

286 


THE SABLE CLOUD 

in this way. He had not supposed Moires would 
quite do that. 

Morres was chewing thoughtfully. He shook his 
head. 

“ It’s an open secret that you have reached an 
agreement.” 

Mr. Lea looked closely at the finger nails of his 
right hand. 

“ So we have reached an agreement, have we? ” 
he asked, non-committally. 

“ So Winton Finley tells me.” 

“ Wi-! ” 

“ He says invest quick and invest big.” 

“ Then why do you ask me? ” 

“ I believe in going to headquarters, every time.” 

“ Headquarters of the Confederated Eice Com¬ 
panies,” Mr. Lea reminded him, “ is down in Nas¬ 
sau Street.” 

Morres grinned. “ Headquarters for Winton 
Finley is right here, I guess. By the way, I 
haven’t congratulated you on the little girl’s en¬ 
gagement. Finley’s one of the coming men all 
right.” 

“ Thank you.” Mr. Lea threw the words out as 
a sort of an aside. “ Look here,” he asked, “ how 
did Finley come to speak to you about the rice 
company? ” 

Morres puckered his mouth around the tooth¬ 
pick. “ I don’t know—friendliness, I guess.” 

“Has he told anybody else?” 

287 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ I couldn’t say. Must have other friends, I sup¬ 
pose. Why, a young politician has got to have 
friends if he wants to get anywhere. The more the 
better.” 

Mr. Lea reached for the telephone. “ Excuse me 
a minute.” He gave an order to his secretary. 
“Call the Confederated and see if there has been 
any sudden activity in the stock. Tell them I am 
afraid our plans have become public. Call the Pan 
American and tell Mr. de la Pin the same thing. 
Arrange a meeting for this afternoon if possible to 
discuss what is to be done. Call Mr. Finley and 
ask him to come around here at once, right 
away ”—he repeated the last words, “ right 
away! ” shouting them as though he was afraid his 
secretary might miss them. 

He sat staring in front of him at the blotter 
blindly. 

Mr. Morres began to whistle. “ L’amour c’est un 
enfant Boheme” The tune was going round in his 
head. It was sickening! It was maddening! He 
stopped abruptly in the middle of a note. He 
glanced at his host, waiting for him to speak. 

Mr. Lea raised his head slowly, almost as though 
he were waking from sleep. 

“ Look here, Morres,” he said. “ I don’t often 
ask favors. I take care not to put myself in the 
position to need them. But I’m going to ask you 
one now. Don’t hold oft buying on my account— 
that wouldn’t be human nature. But keep quiet 

288 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


about it Don’t let the information go any further. 

I believe it would break-” He interrupted 

himself and changed his sentence. “ I should hate 
to have it get out through me. It would be the first 
time in my career that such a thing has hap¬ 
pened ”—he repeated it dully, “ the first time.” 

“ That’s all right, old fellow. You can count on 
me. I can afford not to buy.” Morres took the 
toothpick from his mouth and began thoughtfully 
scratching at an ink-spot on the desk with it. “I 
know just how you feel. It isn’t long since I found 
myself in the same position.—That Silver Bright 
deal down in the Argentine. News of it got out 
somehow, and went like wild-fire through the town. 
In an hour there was de la Pin and White and that 
fellow Jones.—And after them the deluge. Beats 
me how things get out, when you think they’re as 
tight as a safe. Cost me several million, I guess, 
that bit of indiscretion on somebody’s part. And 
I haven’t got the faintest idea who did it. 

Say-” he looked up as though a sudden thought 

had struck him. “ I’ll bet I do know why Finley 
let me on to this, gratitude, it was for my letting 
him in on Silver Brights.—Sure, that’s what he 
said. Stupid of me to forget.” 

He looked at the point of the toothpick critically, 
decided that it was too inky to put back in his 
mouth and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. 

Mr. Lea was staring ahead of him again, not ap¬ 
pearing to listen. 


289 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


Morres rose. “ Well, I ? ll be going.” But before 
be was clear of the arms of his chair he dropped 
back again. “ By the way, about that mortgage.” 

So it was coming! Mr. Lea pulled himself to¬ 
gether. “ I shall pay it in September,” he said. 

Mr. Morres scratched the back of his head. 

“ Did you ever get that second letter I wrote you 
about it? ” he asked. 

“ No, I never did. The fact is, I lost a number 
of letters while I was sick.” Mr. Lea looked around 
the desk hopefully as though among the papers 
strewn thick upon it he might still find it. “ There 
was such a pile of them that I had my secretary 
go over them and take out those she thought un¬ 
important. I trusted her judgment too far.” 

“ Be hanged if I can see how any fool could think 
you didn’t need to see that. I’m sorry you didn’t 
get it. I hoped it would have made you change 
your mind about that mortgage.” 

“ It would have had to be very persuasive.” Mr. 
Lea said it firmly. 

“ I flatter myself it was. Have you got a few 
minutes more? ” 

“As long as you like-” Mr. Lea’s expres¬ 

sion did not, how r ever, look open-minded. 

Morres settled himself comfortably, resting his 
elbow on the desk and his head on his hand. He 
stretched his legs out full length in front of him. 

“ I had a visit from young Rocoft just before 
I wrote that letter. The boy took it terribly to 

290 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


heart that you and his father had quarrelled. 
Thought his father was all in the wrong about this 
mortgage.” 

“ Huh! ” grunted Lea. 

Morres continued: “ You know Rocoft did it for 
the boy’s sake so he could go into Learning and 
Phillipse, but he wouldn’t touch a cent of the 
money. Threw Learning and Phillipse down cold, 
as soon as he knew where it came from.” 

“ Glad to hear he’s got that much decency,” re¬ 
marked Lee. 

“ And pluck,” continued Morres. “ Came to me 
with a hare-brained scheme for taking the mortgage 
over himself so you would know he disapproved of 
what his father had done. Now that shows stuff 
in the boy, to be willing to load up with a $100,000 
debt for the sake of an idea.” 

“ Crazv,” said Lea. 

“ He’s sweet on your girl, that’s what was at the 
bottom of it, of course, poor boy.—Well, I suppose 
she is wise. Finley’ll go a lot further. Though 
young Rocoft is no slouch either. I’ve got him in 
Silver Brights now and he’s taking hold like a 
streak. Shouldn’t wonder if he became my right- 
hand man.” 

“ I have always liked him,” said Lea. 

“ Well then, say, for his sake, don’t pay off the 
mortgage. He’d take it as a sign of forgiveness 
if you didn’t. And as for me, I’d be mighty pleased 

if you’d let it stand—I-” Piebald Liv grew 

291 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


red and shuffled his hands like an embarrassed 
schoolboy. “ They say there’s no fool like an old 
fool, but the truth is I’m going to marry again and 
I’d like that mortgage as a present to the bride. 
I’d feel it was a little something that was safe as a 
church—you never can tell about stocks and bonds 
and things, after all.” 

Once again Mr. Lea roused himself. 

“ Congratulations, Livingstone, who-? ” 

“ Johanna Cotenet.” 

“Ah. A nice woman. I have known Johanna 
ever since we were children. Please convey to her 
my best wishes.” 

“ About the mortgage,” said Morres, a little hur¬ 
riedly, as though he felt it a relief to turn back to 
business. 

“ The way you put it, you make it impossible 
for me to do anything but let it stand,” answered 
Mr. Lea, as though he were bestowing a favor. 

Mr. Morres accepted the manner. “ Thank you,” 
he said. “Now I’ll be off. I’ve taken enough of 
your time.—Unless you will come to lunch? ” 

Lea shook his head. “ Can’t, to-day, got to get 
through some things. Glad to have seen you. 
Good-morning.” 

When his visitor had left, he dropped his head 
in his hands, and sat thus in dejection. Things 
were whirling in his mind. He needed help in this 
situation. Once or twice, instinctively, his hand 
reached out for the telephone to call upon Finley 

292 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


to consult with. him. Then he remembered that 
Finley could not be consulted. He shook his head 
violently. And the thought came to him to go to 
Louisa. He jumped up and took his hat. Louisa! 
She seemed to him a strength and a refuge, as he 
hurried out of his office. Strange for little Louisa 
to seem like that. He thought of that, even then. 


293 


CHAPTER XXVII 


“ If you think that on account of that promise, 
I ought to see Johnny, why, I am willing to, Fred¬ 
die,said Louisa. That was the morning that Mr. 
Morres went to see her father. 

Freddie exclaimed: “ Thank goodness! ” 

But Louisa shook her head violently. “ Xo. It 
is going to be hard, and I don’t want to see him. 
It can’t do any good. But I will.” 

“ All right,” agreed Freddie, u as long as you 
will.” 

“ You arrange it, please. Here this afternoon— 
and tell Mamma.” 

“ Afterwards, I’ll c tell Mamma.’ ” Freddie put 
quotation marks around it with her tone. 

“ All right.—I guess afterwards will do.” 

Mrs. Lea went up to her room in the afternoon. 
She seldom spent much time in the library when 
Freddie might be expected to be there. 

Louisa was left alone in the room. She took up a 
book and fyer eyes went travelling evenly down 
page after page. But her mind was not with them. 
She refused to let herself think of Johnny, so she 
thought of Xoel. Dear Xoel! Quiet pictures of 
their finished friendship passed before her eyes, 
stinging them to tears. 

Freddie, in the drawing-room, was playing the 

294 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


piano softly, dreamily. Freddie could play. It 
carried Louisa back to summer afternoons at Isle 
du Nord when, lying under the windows of the de la 
Pin house, she and Noel listened to the music of the 
elders. There was nothing between you and the 
sky as you lay there on the grass, not even the 
branch of a tree. You lost all sense of earth and 
of substance. It was like floating on the music as 
you float on water, the rhythm rocking you like 
the swell of the sea and the melody splashing you 
like tiny wavelets, with tingling thrills. Between 
pieces there had been a soft rustle of garments and 
a mumur of voices very drowsy to hear. You 
stretched and yawned and pulled Noel’s curls 
gently. But when it was all over and the chairs 
scraped back and the voices spoke out loud, then 
you jumped to your feet quickly and scrambled in 
through the dining-room window, close on Noel’s 
heels, and ate largely of things not meant for youth 
before the elders arrived to stop you. Or some¬ 
times between pieces instead of lying still you stole 
away to the greenhouse and picked forbidden nec¬ 
tarines to munch while you listened. Sometimes 
you sat up and talked in whispers. Last year— 
was it really only last year?—only six months ago? 
—you talked a lot about Bobby. Funny you never 
talked much about Johnny- 

This train of thought at best was dangerous. It 
was too soft. 

The front door-bell rang. The music stopped 

295 



THE 8ABLE CLOUD 


with a quick chord and Freddie’s feet went hurry* 
ing across the hall. 

Louisa stood up. The book slipped to the floor 
as she turned to face Johnny. 

He came forward with hands outstretched. 

“ Louisa, my dear.” 

She stepped aside quickly. 

“ Don’t, Johnny. You mustn’t speak to me 
like that! Oh, why did you insist on seeing me? 
What is the use? Let me go.” She would have 
passed him but he stretched his arm out in front 
of her. 

Her eyes blazed then into a sudden anger that 
was a relief. 

“ Let me by,” she ordered. 

“ No.” 

“ Take down your arm.” 

“ No.” 

“ Do you want me to call? ” 

“ I don’t care.” 

Her breath caught. This was a new Johnny. 
A Johnny who frightened her. His eyes were hard 
and steady, not soft and indolent as their nature 
was. She had misjudged her strength in venturing 
this interview. 

“ What do you want? ” she asked. 

“ I want to talk this out. Sit down.” 

“ No.” 

“ All right then, stand up. You can’t marry 
Winton Finley.” 


296 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


Up in the gallery there was a little sound. 
Neither heard it. 

“ You dare say that to me! ” she exclaimed. 

“ I do. What right have you got to marry him? ” 

“ WTiat right have you got to ask me such a ques¬ 
tion? ” 

“ The right of love. Have you got any such right 
to marry him? Oh, Louisa, my dear! ” He put his 
hand up over his eyes. 

The way by him lay open now but she did not 
take it. She stood rubbing her fingers together 
stiffly, like a child struggling with itself. 

His hand dropped. “ You can’t look at me and 
tell me you love him,” he said ; “ can you look at 
him and tell him so ? ” 

She winced. “ Don’t, Johnny.” 

“ How can you do such a thing, Louisa? Don’t 
you know it’s wicked? Don’t you know you 
have no right to marry anyone in the world but 
me? ” 

“ Johnny, stop it!” Her voice was a cry. 
a That can’t be. You know it can’t be. Don’t talk 
about it.” 

“ I will talk about it. It’s got to be. Why 
shouldn’t it? That our parents have quarrelled is 
no reason. Must we be unhappy in their unhappi¬ 
ness, Louisa ? Rather it is their place to be happy 
in their children’s happiness.” 

“ But, Johnny, you don’t know. You don’t real¬ 
ize. Papa has had a stroke. Nobody knows but 

297 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


me, not even Mamma. I think it would almost kill 
him to have me marry you.” 

“ Then don’t marry anybody.” 

“ That would almost kill him, too. You don’t 
know, Johnny. You honestly don’t. He’s so sick. 
He’s set his heart on it.” 

“ And for a sick man’s whim you are willing to 
wreck your life and my life and Finley’s life, too. 
You think you’re fine, don’t you! ” 

She shook her head. “Not Winton’s life, any¬ 
way.” 

“ He doesn’t care for you enough to have it mat¬ 
ter, I suppose.” Johnny said it sneeringly. He 
stooped to pick up the book which was open at the 
fly-leaf where Noel’s name was. 

“ I wonder what Noel would say to all this,” he 
remarked, turning to place it on the table. 

“ Don’t talk about Noel.” 

“ Are you going back on her, too ? ” 

“ Oh, dear Noel! It’s heart-breaking to see poor 
Bobby.” 

“ Don’t call him c poor Bobby.’ He carries a 
light in his heart which can never grow foul.” 

“ John!” 

He swung around and caught her hand. 

“ Oh, Louisa! Louisa! ” 

She drew away from him. “Please, Johnny. 
Don’t make it so hard for me,” she pleaded. 

“ I would make it impossible if I only could.” 

“ But you can’t. I’m not a child. I have made 

298 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 

my decision. Nothing but death can make it im¬ 
possible.” 

He caught his breath with a hiss and an expres¬ 
sion came over his face which Louisa had never 
seen before on any man. 

“Almost you tempt me to use death, then, to 
make it impossible! ” he cried. And suddenly he 
sprang at her and caught her in his arms. She 
struggled to get away from him. 

“ Let me go, Johnny! ” 

“ No.” 

“ Let me go, I say.” 

“ Not till you have kissed me.” 

“Please, Johnny.” 

“ No.” He forced her head around so he could 
look into her eyes and then he kissed her. 

“Now will you dare marry him? ” 

He opened his arms and she slipped to the 
ground. 

“ Oh, Johnny, if you loved me you would go away 
and never come near me again! ” 

He turned on his heel. 

Freddie, after she had opened the front door to 
Johnny, went straight up-stairs to her aunt’s room. 

Mrs. Lea was very busy. There was linen piled 
in luscious, sagging piles on the bed and chairs 
and tables, smooth soft sheets, and sheeny table¬ 
cloths and napkins in squares and bolts. She was 
passing from one to the other, examining them 

299 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


closely with hand and eye, frowning as though 
choice was a difficult matter. 

She sighed and smiled when she saw her niece. 

“ Well, Freddie dear, have you come to help me? 
I can’t decide which of these table-cloths it is best 
to get. After all, it’s a matter of taste which you 
prefer, plain or with a pattern. Louisa ought to 
decide it for herself. Where is Louisa? I wish 
you would call her and tell her to come here, dear.” 

Freddie plumped down on the edge of the bed, 
and a pile of napkins slid off onto the floor. 

Mrs. Lea said: “ Oh dear! ” But Freddie barely 
glanced at them. 

“ Louisa is in the library,” she announced. 
“ And Johnny Bocoft is with her.” 

Mrs. Lea, who had been leaning over to pick up 
the linen, straightened with a jerk like a puppet. 

“ What did you say? Why, the idea, Frederica! 
Your uncle will be very much displeased. How did 
he get in? ” 

“ I let him in. / telephoned for him to come! ” 

“ Why, Frederica, I am surprised at you. I 
really am. The very idea! ” 

“It’s a grand idea,” said Freddie. “Things 
couldn’t go on like that, you know, Aunt Lea. Oh, 
Aunt Lea! You don’t want Louisa to be unhappy, 
do you? ” 

She jumped up and slipped her arm around her 
aunt’s shoulder. She was tall and Mrs. Lea had to 
raise her eyes to look into her face. It was a sweet, 

300 


THE SABLE CLOTJD 

strong face, now the hard mockery was dropped 
from it. 

“ Of course I don’t want Louisa to be unhappy. 
What terrible ideas you have, Freddie. I don’t 
know where you get them, I really don’t. The only 
two things I care for in all the world are your 
uncle’s happiness and Louisa’s.” 

“ I know they are.” Freddie was very soft in 
her manner, now, very gentle. “ But suppose they 
are incompatible? Come and sit down, Aunt Lea, 
and let’s talk it over.” 

Mrs. Lea was not actually crying. But she took 
her handkerchief from her pocket and blew her 
nose. 

He and we! The worst that she had ever feared 
had come to pass. Her husband’s interest and her 
child’s were in opposition. Freddie had brought 
her dilemma before her in all its force. Still she 
made an effort to evade it. 

“ They are not incompatible,” she insisted. 
u You are very wrong to talk like this, Frederica. 
Very wrong indeed.” 

“But am I wrong, Aunt Lea? Ho you really 
think Louisa loves Winton? ” 

“ Of course she does.” 

“ Now don’t take it as a matter of course, this 
once. Try to consider it absolutely afresh. Has 
she ever seemed to love him? Has she ever said 
she did, or looked as though she did, or taken any 
interest in the plans for the wedding? ” 

301 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Mrs. Lea shook her head. “ She is behaving very 
badly about the wedding. I never saw such a girl. 
I thought one was always interested in one’s own 
wedding. I know I was.” 

“ Yes, but would you have been if you hadn’t 
cared for the man you were marrying? What 
would you have felt like, Aunt Lea, if you hadn’t 
loved Uncle Fred? ” 

Mrs. Lea looked surprised at her question. 
“ Why, I wouldn’t have married him, of course, if 
I hadn’t loved him. I did love him from the minute 
my father told me he thought he would be a good 
match. That’s what I tell you, Freddie, Louisa 
must love Winton or she wouldn’t marry him.” 

“ Ye gods,” whispered Freddie, under her breath. 
She rubbed the back of her neck thoughtfully, the 
shaved place under her bob. “ Didn’t she ever say 
anything to you about caring for Johnny?” she 
asked. 

Mrs. Lea frowned. “Yes. She had a—I sup¬ 
pose it was a sort of infatuation for him. But that 
is all over. She has forgotten it and so had I. I 
think it shows very poor taste on your part to re¬ 
mind me of it, Frederica.” 

Once more Freddie whispered “Ye gods.” She 
jumped up. “ Oh, Aunt Lea! ” she exclaimed. 
“ Don’t be blind. You’d see if you wanted to see. 
Come, let me show you. We’ll go into the gallery.” 

“ And listen to Louisa talking to Johnny? ” 
Mrs. Lea sounded profoundly shocked. “ That 

302 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


would be eavesdropping. I will never do sucb a 
thing, Frederica. I trust Louisa.” 

“ Ob, lands! Come, Aunt Lea. Come. Call it 
eavesdropping if you will, call it anything, but 
come. It’s for Louisa’s happiness. Give her hap¬ 
piness. Please.” 

Mrs. Lea was really crying now with her hand¬ 
kerchief up to her face. Freddie, watching, had no 
idea what a struggle was going on behind the little 
piece of white linen. Love had come to a cross 
ways. Her aunt was choosing between her child 
and her husband. She knew Freddie was speaking 
the truth. It was only self-preservation made her 
deny it. She fought out her battle and made her 
decision behind her handkerchief. 

“ Yes,” she said, “ I will give her happiness.” 

She opened the door and led the way. There 
was something exalted in the way she walked. 

But it shrivelled suddenly when from the top of 
the stairs she saw her husband open the front door. 

He looked up at her, weary-faced. “Where is 
Louisa? ” he asked. “ I want Louisa.” 

Freddie ran down and caught his hand. 
“ Come,” she said. “ Here is Louisa.” 

It was then that there was a sound up in the 
gallery which the two down on the floor of the 
library did not hear. After that there was no move¬ 
ment till Johnny turned upon his heel and walked 
towards the door. Then out of the silence Papa’s 
voice cried: “ Stop! ” 


303 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Louisa from the floor looked up and saw him 
coming towards her with his hands held out as 
though he might either bear a gift within them, 
happiness like a tangible thing, or might come as 
a supplicant to her for her young strength to aid 
him. He stretched one out towards her and the 
other towards Johnny. 

Up-stairs Mamma was crying on Freddie’s shoul¬ 
der. “ Oh, the idea, the very idea! ” Freddie was 
trying to straighten her up again and get rid of 
her weight. 

“ Ye gods! Isn’t it grand ! 99 


304 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


Finley at his desk was tapping the point of his 
pencil up and down against the blotter, while he 
tried to decide whether it would be wiser to write 
Louisa a note apologizing for having let the en¬ 
gagement become public, or to do it by word of 
mouth, or not to do it at all, but let it drop en¬ 
tirely. His thought was not consecutive, however, 
because the recollection of Lois came breaking into 
his cogitations every few minutes, making him 
smile where he had frowned before. If Louisa 
should really be angry enough to break it—well, he 
had paid back what he had borrowed and had thou¬ 
sands in rice. Lois had meant it when she said: 
“Any girl will stay married as long as she is 
happy.” It seemed absurd to think of Lois caring 
—game little bird, she was. Morres- 

The telephone rang. He was glad to answer it 
and postpone decision. 

“Winton? It’s Lois.” 

“ Hello, there. I was just thinking about you.” 

“ Were you? Well, come up here and tell me 
what you were thinking.” 

“ Fll come this evening.” 

“ What will Louisa say? ” 

“ I’ll tell her I’m working.” 

“ Xo, come now.” 


305 



THE SABLE CLOUD 


“ In the middle of the morning? I’ve really got 
to work.” 

“ No, no. I want you.” 

“ Think how much more you will want me after 
a day’s waiting.” 

“ No, Winton, I’m not joking. I need you.” 

He laughed. “ You’re inventing.” 

“ No. I do need you.” 

“ What for? To tell you your new dress is be¬ 
coming? I know it is. I never saw you in one that 
wasn’t.” 

“ No, I’m serious. I thought we were friends, 
Winton. There is something you can help me in. 
Please come.” 

“ Eight.” 

“ How soon? Come quick.” 

“ Be there in twenty minutes.” 

Lois came running down the stairs to meet him 
as he came into the house. She caught his hand 
and pulled him into the library. 

“ Quick, we haven’t much time. Isn’t this aw¬ 
ful?” 

She had caught his eye marvelling at her cos¬ 
tume, the plain white waist, long-sleeved and round¬ 
necked, the plain round skirt down to her ankles. 

“ Well, I never did see you dressed just like that 
before,” he admitted. 

“ It’s all they’ve left me. They have taken every¬ 
thing else out of my closet. It would be funny if 
it wasn’t tragic, Winton. It’s medieval! ” 

306 


THE SABLE CLOUD 


Finley laughed among the sofa cushions. 
“ What’s the game? ” he asked, lighting a cigarette. 

Lois grabbed for the box. “ Give me one! ” she 
exclaimed. “ They have taken all those too.” She 
glanced over her shoulder towards the door. 
“ Gosh, I’m so scared Coty will come home and 
find you here.” 

“ Does Coty dislike me so terribly? ” 

“No, but she’d tell Daddy, and goodness only 
knows what more he’d think of to do to me. Oh, 
Winton, what am I going to do? ” 

Winton looked supremely content. He was 
watching Lois through the smoke as one watches 
a play. 

“ You’re an original one, all right. You keep a 
fellow guessing. Aren’t you going to tell me what 
it’s all about? ” 

“ Of course I’m going to tell you! I am telling 
you! My Lord—it’s heaven to have a cigarette! 
Daddy’s had all my dresses taken away. I’m to 
wear things like this, and all my money taken away 
—I’m not to have any more allowance. And I’m 
to go to the country to live and do my own work, 
with no one but Coty. But if I want to earn my 
own living he’ll have me taught a trade. Nice pros¬ 
pect, isn’t it? ” 

Her costume was not unbecoming to her. It 
made her look boyish. But she looked as though 
she might cry, which would be a pity, because that 
would be unbecoming. 


307 


TEE SABLE CLOUD 


“ Holy smoke, old girl! You must have been cut¬ 
ting up. What’s it all about? ” 

“ You.” 

“ Me! ” He straightened up from the cushions 
with a jerk. “ What in the name of all that’s holy 
have I done? ” 

“ You kissed me last night.” 

He laughed, dropping back among the cushions. 
“ I kissed the little girl, naughty man! And I 
suppose that was my fault? ” 

“ Oh, I’m not mad,” she assured him. “ Kiss me 
again.” She leaned towards him, both hands on 
the sofa between them, her weight on her arms. 

He pulled her towards him. “ Forgiving little 
girl. Kow tell us, really, what’s the game.” 

“ There is no game. What am I going to do? I 
sent for you to advise me.” 

“ Why me? ” he asked. She was leaning against 
him, and he moved so that she slid deeper into the 
cushions while he sat on the edge of the sofa. 

“ Because- Aren’t we still friends, Win- 

ton? ” 

“ Of course, my dear—but-” 

She wiggled up beside him, tossing away her 
cigarette. “ Oh, it’s only for a little while, Win. 
Daddy’ll get over being angry and forget soon— 
he’ll get lonely without me. He never will be able 
to get on without me, poor old Daddy, no matter 
what I do. He tries to be severe, but he can’t man¬ 
age. Why, what do you suppose he’s worked for all 

308 




THE SABLE CLOUD 


his life, made Ms fortune for, except for me?. Do 
you suppose a kiss, just a kiss, can change all that? 
And he doesn’t dislike you, Win, either. It isn’t as 
if he did.” 

He was leaning forward with his elbows on his 
knees. He looked at her sideways out of the corner 
of his eyes. 

“ So-o, that’s it, is it? But, my dear—there’s 
Louisa.” 

“And Johnny,” she added. 

He laughed at her. “ Johnny doesn’t worry me.” 

She rose and stood leaning against the mantel, 
lighting another cigarette and singing between 
puffs, in a low voice. 

“L’amour c’est un enfant BoJieme, 

Qui n’a jamais , jamais connu do loi m 
Si tu ne m’aime pas je t’aime, 

Et—si je> Vaime prend garde a toi.” 

He was not looking at her, but the song kept her 
before his eyes. The bottom of her skirt was swing¬ 
ing gently to and fro in time with the rhythm. 

He let his eyes travel up from the swaying skirt 
over the swaying body to her thrown back head. 

“Well?” he said inquiringly. 

“ Well,” she repeated challengingly. 

“ Prend garde a toi , prend garde a toi -” 

Her song had sunk to a hummiug. 

He sprang to his feet and faced her. “Be frank 

309 



TEE SABLE CLOUD 

for once in your life. Are you suggesting that we 
elope? ” 

“ If you like.” She tossed her short hair back. 
Then suddenly was an excited child. “ Oh, Win, 
what a lark! What fun it would be. Think of 
Daddy, think of Coty! How mad they will be. But 
only for a while. Only a little while. He’ll soon 
forgive his 6 little Lo,’ ‘ my girl Lo.’ ” She mim¬ 
icked her father as she threw herself, laughing, 
down on the sofa. 

“ When? ” asked Winton. 

“ Now or never! ” she exclaimed. “ Before they 
come back and lock me up.” 

“ Get your things, then.” 

“ They’re ready. I’ve got some real clothes in the 
bag that the maid sneaked out of Coty’s room for 
me.” She ran to the door. 

“Elise! Elise! Yite, ma valise! Get a taxi, 
Win, quick. I’ll be down.” 

She was at the door by the time the car stopped. 

The maid came laughing with the bag. 

“ Bonne chance, Mademoiselle,” she cried, 
“ bonne chance!” 

Lois turned to wave to her out of the back win¬ 
dow. 

“ What a lark! There comes Dad—at this hour 
—and with Coty. Look, Win, look at them! with 
their heads together. I bet they’re discussing me. 
Oh, what a lark! Kiss me, Win. Where are we 
going? ” 


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